Should bariatric surgery be offered to prisoners?

Comment on: Should bariatric surgery be offered to prisoners?

“…Although there is a burgeoning field of research in healthcare disparities, one group that has gotten significantly less attention is incarcerated jail and prison inmates. In this edition of the journal, Luhrs and Giorgi [4] have addressed the important and controversial topic of whether bariatric surgery should be provided to the prison population. As the authors correctly point out, the last 30 years have seen a meteoric rise in both the number of individuals incarcerated and the number of individuals with obesity in the United States.…”

“…The authors of this opinion piece raise the thought-provoking argument that to ensure equity in healthcare for imprisoned persons, and to provide optimal treatment for prisoners with obesity and its health-related co-morbidities, access to bariatric surgery should be provided for qualifying individuals within the prison system [ 4 ]. They propose that candidates might be identified during routine healthcare within the penal system and referred to a bariatric program, the logistics of which would vary based upon the resources available within an individual prison and the affiliated bariatric surgery program.…”