Gynecologists Refuse Patients For Being Too Fat
LatestIf you’re an overweight woman in South Florida, you may have trouble getting your annual pap smear — gynecologists in the region are starting to turn away women solely because of their weight.
The Florida Sun Sentinel polled 105 ob-gyn practices and found that 15 of them had weight limits for their patients, even if they were healthy. The stated reason: overweight women are just too hard to take care of. Some doctors said their equipment couldn’t handle obese patients — others said they were concerned about the risk of weight-related complications and the potential need to refer women out to specialists. Dr. Albert Triana, whose practice turns down obese patients, says, “People don’t realize the risk we’re taking by taking care of these patients. There’s more risk of something going wrong and more risk of getting sued.”