Dr. Ilmar Kaur begins the first out of four bariatric surgeries he has scheduled that day. Dr. Kaur is the head surgeon at Bariatric Services, a private clinic popular among foreign patients who seek to lose weight. He is a well-known weight-loss surgeon in Estonia.
Dr. Kaur, 44, performs a gastric sleeve surgery on a patient from Finland. He says about 80 per-cent of his patients are female, and that most come from nearby Finland and Scandinavia. “When it comes to weight loss, I think women are more concerned than men.” he said.
The gastric sleeve surgery is considered a less invasive surgery, explains Dr. Kaur. The surgeon can view the internal environment of the body with a visual guide and proceed to operate, instead of making large incisions.
Two screens aid Dr. Kaur visually while he operates with small surgical instruments. Here, Dr. Kaur must separate the stomach from other neighbouring organs, before he can begin cutting.
Each surgery takes Dr. Kaur approximately half an hour to complete. Dr. Kaur finishes the surgery by stitching up minor incisions on the patients. His 17-year-old daughter (left), Kirke Kaur, is helping him out with his surgeries over her summer break.
On the table is a portion of the patient’s stomach that has just been removed. In the gastric sleeve surgery, about 85 per-cent of the stomach is removed from the patient.
Here, Dr. Kaur holds up the stomach of the Finnish patient he had just operated on. The stomach was inflated for visual purposes, he said. “After the surgery, patients would be able to lose about one-third of their body weight.”
Dr. Kaur practices in both private and public hospitals. During the visit, Dr. Kaur was operating at Fertilitas, a private hospital that caters to foreign patients in Estonia. Medical forms in English, Russian, Estonian and Finnish are available for foreign patients.
Back in his office, Dr. Kaur explains that there are two procedures for bariatric surgeries; the gastric sleeve surgery, and the gastric bypass surgery, which aim to reduce the body’s absorption of food.
