Muhammad Masoud, 23, his sister Shehiva, 21, and their younger sister Maysaloun, 19, all underwent gastric bypass surgery last week – on the same day – by Dr. Muad Farage, director of the surgical department at Baruch Padeh Medical Center (Poriya) near Tiberias.
Muhammad, who weighs 188 kg (415 lbs), said he was the first to decide to undergo the surgery but hesitated. But then his two sisters, Shehiva and Maysaloun, who each weighs 120 kg (265 lbs), decided to go ahead with the surgery.
Two days after the surgery, all three siblings are recovering in the surgical ward, feeling good and happy to turn a new leaf.
“Most of my work is physical, I felt I was limited and there were things I found difficult to do,” Muhammad said.
Maysaloun commented, “It’s better to go through it together, it’s easier and we make one another stronger.”
Director of the surgical department Dr. Muad Farage, who treated the three siblings, explained, “I first operated on Muhammad. This is a single-launch, duodenal switch bypass, an innovative operation performed in only a small number of hospitals in Israel. In this type of operation, the gastric porter is kept and we determine the length of the small intestine that will function after the surgery. The advantage of this innovative surgery is that we ensure a nice weight loss and minimize the risk of nutritional disorders associated with malnutrition”
“After Muhammad, we operated on his two sisters, the first underwent gastric bypass surgery and the other a mini gastric bypass surgery.”
Dr. Farage is the first surgeon in Israel to start doing duodenal bypass surgery in one launch.
“In recent months, the number of surgeries we’ve been doing has increased significantly,” he related. “We get about 20 gastric bypass surgeries a month and the upward trend will continue. We perform a series of bariatric surgeries, including complex recurrence surgeries or surgeries on patients with complications from previous surgeries. We have three senior surgeons in the department who are very experienced in this area. Recently, the Health Ministry approved us as a center for treating morbid obesity and complications.”
The Masoud family lives in Beit Jann, a Druze village on Mount Meron in northern Israel.
“We heard good things about Dr. Farage and we all decided to undergo the surgery at Poriya Hospital,” Muhammad said. “We also didn’t want to wait a long time because my sister is a student and we were glad to get our turn really quickly.”