Life insurance: the gall bladder risk has been revealed

Talking about life insurance,a new study suggests that elderly patients and those with underlying health problems having gallbladder surgery could be more at-risk depending on where they are treated.
Researchers looking at data for gallbladder removal over a 10-year period found that while patient deaths were generally low, the chances of survival for patients considered high-risk varied between hospitals.
The University of Edinburgh research team hope that the findings, which were based on a study of 60,000 patients treated in 37 Scottish hospitals, could help in making decisions about where people should be treated and help them in achieving the best life insurance and low cost life insurance as well.
The study, published by the British Medical Journal, showed that mortality rates were 50 per cent higher in hospitals carrying out a small number of gallbladder removals compared with hospitals that performed many.
Patients most at-risk of complications included the elderly, those with other health problems such as heart or chest conditions and patients from socially-deprived areas, according to researchers.
They found a high-risk patient had a one in five chance of dying at a centre that performed a small number of these operations, compared with a one in seven chance of death if treated at a hospital with higher numbers of surgery.