Steven Assanti is going to Die

[Paul in Saudi]

Steven Assanti is the massively obese man in Rhode Island who has been kicked out of the hospital. Here is a report in the Daily Mail.

(The object of his being in the hospital was to slim down enough so they could so some sort of weight-loss stomach surgery.)

The headline is that he was booted out of the hospital for ordering a pizza, thus violating his care plan. He seems like an unpleasant patient, having made some videos he posted online of his less-than-nice behavior.

Nonetheless, I am not happy about this. It seems to me that hospitals are for people who need help, even if their problem is being very fat. The newspaper seems to have printed photos of the man just out of nastiness. It is tough to imagine another sort of patient they would show like that.

Should we not care for even nasty not-too-nice fat people? Or perhaps at least should we not make a public spectacle of them? I suppose he is supposed to free up the bed and go die someplace else.

 

[Kyriakos]

Eh, assuming the pizza would not arrive through the window via drone, how exactly was that the issue?

Anyway, he seems to be very difficult to work with, yes, i suppose the main issue here is why this is national news...

800 lbs is something like 350 kilograms?

 

[Paul in Saudi]

I think it is probably somehow more acceptable to treat fat people badly than thin ones.

 

[BvBPL]

Doctors are obliged to seek the consent of their patients and ensure that their care if those patients does no additional harm. If he is not consenting to that care and using it to facilitate unhealthy behavior than discharge is required.

Note that the Daily Mail's videos are from 2012.


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[Paul in Saudi]

(Honestly I did not notice the video at all. This is a current story is it not?)

If the guy was a smoker who had to be watched to make sure he did not sneak a smoke, would he be tossed out? I am no expert, but I expect not.

==eta==
I wonder if there are enough of these cases for a special regional facility.

 

[NovaKart]

I suppose it's a real burden to care for someone who is massively obese compared to normal patients. I mean was he even able to walk? I guess they got fed up and that was the last straw.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

I would suppose it is their job to not get fed up.

 

[BvBPL]

It is a recent story. He was discharged from RIH a few days ago. He's been admitted to Kent County Hospital, although they don't expect hat to be a long term thing.

RIH is, appropriately, refusing comment so there's no way to know for certain if the discharge was voluntary or involuntary. RIH doesn't have an in patient weigh loss program so its staff was probably poorly equipped to handle this guys needs.


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[Kyriakos]

I would suppose it is their job to not get fed up.

Well someone in that hospital room should.

 

[BvBPL]

in eighty days he lost twenty pounds. Then he ordered a pizza. A large pizza has anywhere from two thousand to forty five hundred kilocalories. It takes a deficient if about thirty five hundred kc to lose a pound. So from one pizza, he may have well gained a pound, or five percent of the weigh he had lost. That's the progress from four days of his hospitalization.

His goal is the lose of about two hundred and fifty pounds to get to a weigh where bariatric surgery is possible. At the rate if twenty pounds every eighty days, or a quarter pound a day, it would take him one thousand days to get to the target weight. If he eats one thirty five hundred kc pizza every eighty days then it would take him an additional fifty days to hit that target weight.

He, and everyone else I assume, recognizes that his problem is the result of a chronic behavioral health issue. RIH has 31 inpatient mental health beds geared primarily towards those with acute psychiatric needs. Assanti, it appears, was not being cared for by the psych team. Which may have been appropriate given that psych treatment probably shouldn't be the key form of treatment for people requiring severe behavior modification but absent any particularly striking acute mental illness.

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[Kyriakos]

in eighty days he lost twenty pounds. Then he ordered a pizza. A large pizza has anywhere from two thousand to forty five hundred kilocalories. It takes a deficient if about thirty five hundred kc to lose a pound. So from one pizza, he may have well gained a pound, or five percent of the weigh he had lost. That's the progress from four days of his hospitalization.

His goal is the lose of about two hundred and fifty pounds to get to a weigh where bariatric surgery is possible. At the rate if twenty pounds every eighty days, or a quarter pound a day, it would take him one thousand days to get to the target weight. If he eats one thirty five hundred kc pizza every eighty days then it would take him an additional fifty days to hit that target weight.

He, and everyone else I assume, recognizes that his problem is the result of a chronic behavioral health issue. RIH has 31 inpatient mental health beds geared primarily towards those with acute psychiatric needs. Assanti, it appears, was not being cared for by the psych team. Which may have been appropriate given that psych treatment probably shouldn't be the key form of treatment for people requiring severe behavior modification but absent any particularly striking acute mental illness.

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Nice

"It would take him 1000 days", in particular...

 

[Flying Pig]

I would suppose it is their job to not get fed up.

Not in so many words, but all medical practice has to be a judgement of whether resources could be better spent elsewhere - if they decided that his mentality meant that he would never recover, keeping him in is costing health and lives in other wards for no good reason.

 

[Borachio]

Link to video.

 

[Kyriakos]

Link to video.

 

[CavLancer]

Using an in depth analysis of historical data I, an expert, have determined that we are all going to die. This guy is just trying harder to get there than many of us. Good luck in his endeavors.

 

[Hygro]

Using an in depth analysis of historical data I, an expert, have determined that we are all going to die. This guy is just trying harder to get there than many of us. Good luck in his endeavors.

 

[bhavv]

After watching the videos, how can anyone have any sympathy for this massive waste of space?

 

[Perfection]

After watching the videos, how can anyone have any sympathy for this massive waste of space?

He obviously has some severe mental issues. And those seem to be going untreated.

 

[Synobun]

After watching the videos, how can anyone have any sympathy for this massive waste of space?

I'm sure there's someone out there who feels the same way about you. It's generally a good idea to not claim universal worth of someone's life.

 

[Kyriakos]

He obviously has some severe mental issues. And those seem to be going untreated.

Yeah. TBH it doesn't look like he is in the state of mind to lose those pounds so as to have the operation. He sounds like he is pretty much reserved to the prospect of staying as he is or likely dieing soon, and obviously he is very miserable being that as well.

Which isn't surprising, obviously. He weights 350 kilograms. That is almost 5 times the 'average' weight of a grown-up human.