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| Paul Mason, 50, who weighed 60 stone two years ago, underwent a gastric bypass after he was told he otherwise faced certain death. |
A British man who at one time was the fattest in the world is pleading with the NHS to remove unsightly flaps of flesh after he managed to lose more than half of his body weight.
But he has been left with rolls of unsightly excess skin after the extreme weight loss and now needs an operation to remove the flaps hanging from his stomach, arms and legs.
However, NHS bosses have refused to perform cosmetic surgery, insisting that he needs to maintain a stable weight before it can be considered.
But Mr Mason, who can now leave the house in a motorised wheelchair, said: ‘I just need a little bit more help. I feel like I have been just left high and dry.
‘I need this operation to be able to get my life back, to be able to get back into society. It is stopping me living a reasonable life.’
The former postman, who weighed 70st – or half a tonne – at his heaviest, used to consume 20,000calories a day, 10 times the normal for the average man. He said his binge eating was spurred by heartbreak in his twenties at the time of his father’s death and a deterioration in his mother’s health.
He quit his job as a postman when his weight prevented him from completing his deliveries. He was transferred to a sorting office, where he worked until 1989 when he was sacked and imprisoned for six months for stealing from customers’ letters.
Mr Mason spent around £30,000 a year on food and sometimes went naked to avoid having to get dressed.
Then in 2009, Mr Mason, from Ipswich, underwent a £30,000 operation on the NHS at Chichester Hospital which drastically reduced the amount he could eat.
Now his frame has shrunk so much that he has been left with swathes of loose skin.
Surgery can be used to remove the excess skin but as the treatment is for cosmetic and not clinical reasons, it is not automatically available on the NHS.
Mr Mason will have to pay around £1,500 to £6,000 if he wants to have the surgery privately depending on the amount of flesh that needs to be removed.
His care bill costs taxpayers an estimated £100,000 a year and it is believed to have topped £1million over the past 15 years
On one occasion firefighters had to be called out to demolish the front wall of his former home so they could drive a fork lift truck inside to lift him out and put him into an ambulance when he needed a hernia operation in 2002.
But Mr Mason, who has a a new target weight of 23 stone, is angered by the NHS’s decision.
He said: ‘My consultant says he’s always seen there is a skinny man waiting to get out but it is so frustrating to have got so far and just be at the final hurdle.
‘I have times when I just sit and cry but then I think “I’m not going to let it get me down.”‘
Health bosses have remained firm about their decision, stating that Mr Mason, who also suffered a heart attack following his gastric bypass, must wait before he has further cosmetic surgery.
An NHS Suffolk spokesperson said: ‘Before a patient has an operation it is important to take a balanced decision that is in the best interest of that patient.
‘In cases like this NHS Suffolk has a panel of people – including clinicians – who decide whether the patient should have such an operation.
‘A patient must have a stable weight before he or she is considered.’
Mr Mason also claimed that the NHS failed to help him as his size soared and instead of receiving a treatment programme to manage his weight, he said he was told in 1996: ‘Ride your bike more.’
He now hopes to learn how to drive and to use his experience to help others with eating disorders, including anorexia.
He has also set up his own craft company to produce Christmas tree decorations and birthday cards.
The heaviest man of all time was American John Minnoch, who weighed 100.2 stone. He died in 1983 aged 42.
