Surgery for Mr Lange

Press, 22 February 1982, Page 6

Surgery for Mr Lange

PA Auckland The Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lange) ,is recovering in hospital after surgery which is expected to make a difference to his weight. His surgeon, Dr Vivian Sorrell, would not say yesterday whether the heavyweight Mr Lange, who weighed 140 kg (22 stone) when he won the Mangere seat by-election in 1977, had undergone bypass surgery to lose weight. Speculation that Mr Lange had had a by-pass, which prevents food from being quite so readily used by the body, would remain unanswered until Mr Lange recovered, Dr Sorrell said,

But asked if the surgery would make a difference to Mr Lange’s weight, Dr Sorrell said: "It probably, will,

and so I think he should be the one to make it definite as to what has been happening. “He has had an abdominal operation but it is his business as to what it was for.” Mr Lange is in the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in St Heliers. “He is doing well, from his point of view, but at the moment he is still in the early stages of recovery. He has not even spoken to some of his own children yet,” Dr Sorrell said. The surgery took place last Wednesday but Dr Sorrell said it might be the end of this week before Mr Lange went home.Some Labour members of Parliament expressed surprise at hearing that Mr Lange was in hospital. One said, “It is the best kept secret in. Parliament.”