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The Maori Party’s Te Tai Hauauru candidate is casting a smaller shadow on the campaign trail.
Chris McKenzie had gastric bypass surgery six weeks ago.
He says he unsuccessfully struggled for years to lose weight, and he also suffered from sleep apnea, liver damage and early stage diabetes.
Since the operation his diabetes has gone, he’s sleeping 6 hours at a stretch and he’s already lost 20kg.
It was his mother in law’s death from diabetes that prompted him to go under the knife.
"My wife all but gave up work to ensre that she could do the dialysis daily and it took a human toll and it took a financial toll on the health system and on my wife and I promised myself I would never put my wife in a position where I could not assist myself and that shee needed to help me with diualysis. I think that lots of families, particularly Maori families, are struggling with this diabetes and with this obesity epidemic," Mr McKenzie says.
He’d like to see analysis done on the cost benefit to the health system of making stomach stapling more widely available, rather than people having to fund it from their own or family resources.
Copyright © 2014, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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