In this modern era where human rights, political correctness and “anything goes” enjoy front row seats in our human society, coupled with the ever-increasing litigious tendency among people, I am not surprised that the medical fraternity is sometimes tiptoeing around the sensitive issue of obesity. Although very anecdotal, I have found that in our Emergency Practice here at Zuid Afrikaans Hospital, this subject is rarely touched upon or sometimes, even completely ignored in the appropriate patient population.

A bit about myself...

My name is Dr Coert Gous. I have been working in the field of Emergency Medicine for the better part of 17 years. After 11 years of studying, one year working under the guidance of Prof. Gert Saayman and my good friend Dr Servaas Rossouw in the Dept of Forensic Medicine, and another 2 years in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Steve Biko Academic Hospital under Prof. Dries Engelbrecht, I eventually ended up here at the beautiful Zuid Afrikaans Hospital as the Director of the Emergency Unit since 2008 where I have been practicing the Art of Emergency Medicine ever since.

The statistics regarding the Covid-19 pandemic is well known and widely distributed in the media. Most of the medical information with regards to the treatment and management of patients infected by the virus focuses very much on the 20% of the patients who are either very ill or severely sick and needs admission.

The Covid-19 pandemic is not only trending on every form of media and social media out there but is currently also a huge factor patients consider when it comes to their help-seeking behaviour for all other medical and surgical conditions.