To: elmatador who wrote (16472 ) 4/4/2007 7:43:58 PM From: Snowshoe Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 219786 Contrast between US and Brazil: ------------------------------------------------------------Update: Rescuers get 700-pound woman out of N.J. bathroom blogs.usatoday.com We told you yesterday about the efforts of local rescue workers to get a morbidly obese woman, thought to weigh somewhere between 700 and 800 pounds, out of the bathroom in her New Jersey home. Here's an update from Reuters: After removing part of the bathroom wall, cutting the window down to the floor, and taking out the toilet and radiator, firefighters moved her into a rescue basket in which she was lowered down a specially reinforced ladder to the ground outside, said Battalion Chief Qareeb Bashir. With the help of around 10 firefighters, she was then moved on to a stretcher, transferred to an ambulance specially equipped for very large people, and taken to a local hospital. A hospital spokeswoman tells the Associated Press that she is in stable condition. -------------------------------------------------------------Why the long face? Rio's obese treated like horses news.yahoo.com 1 hour, 19 minutes ago Rio de Janeiro hospitals have been sending obese people to share medical test equipment with horses at the local race track, drawing complaints from activists who say the practice is humiliating. "When people weigh more than the standard equipment can support they have to be directed to the Jockey Club, which is the only place in Rio where they have the appropriate equipment," a spokeswoman for the Rio state health secretariat said on Wednesday. Patients needing stomach reduction surgery require a tomography, or multiple X-raying of body sections, which is normally carried out inside a chamber. Rio hospitals only have standard tomography equipment for people weighing up to 265-287 pounds (120-130 kg). Tomographs used on horses are sturdier and more spacious than common devices. Rosimere Lima da Silva, head of the Group for Salvaging Self-Esteem and Citizenship of the Obese (Graco), said many patients feel embarrassed to go there. "The obese patients already suffer from a lot of prejudice and having to be treated where animals are is not helping their self-esteem. Many simply refuse to go," she said. Graco staged a small protest on Tuesday outside the state legislative assembly and met some legislators to try to oblige hospitals to buy stronger equipment, including stretchers and wheelchairs for the obese, and to authorise more hospitals to perform stomach stapling surgeries.