Staff at Auckland's Middlemore hospital are running into big problems when dealing with a rise in morbidly obese patients.
About 36,000 people living in the Counties Manukau district are morbidly obese, nearly twice the number of any other DHB.
Middlemore's radiology department has produced a report on how it affects their arm of the hospital.
It says some patients can't fit into MRI machines, which means they can't be scanned.
And staff are at risk of injuring themselves when moving obese patients from the bed to an examination table.
Counties Manakau DHB chief Margie Apa says the government needs to take more action on obesity, starting in schools.
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