Britons cost the NHS £350,000 every year by shoving beer bottles, deodorant cans and toothbrushes in their rectums, study reveals
- 400 ‘foreign’ objects are pulled from English anuses per year NHS data shows
- New anal analysis, shows the problem costs the UK taxpayer £338,819 per year
- Men in their 20s and 50s, were the most likely to ‘lose’ an object in their behind
NHS doctors have spent more than £3million extracting items out of rectums over the past decade, experts say.
Scientists analysed NHS records to determine how many ‘manual removal of foreign body from rectum’ procedures were conducted in NHS hospitals between 2010 and 2019.
They found doctors have had to remove 3,500 objects.
And the team claimed the trend — costing the NHS roughly £340,000 a year — is becoming more of a problem.
Critics today argued taxpayers would be ‘uncomfortable’ with the soaring number, and cost, of the accidents.
The study found the incidence of objects having to be removed from rectums is on the rise with cases particularly growing in men
Nearly twice as many foreign objects (518) were removed in the final year of the study compared to 2010/11.
People most commonly shove objects into their rectum for sexual pleasure.
This is partly to do with the number of nerves in the anus making it highly sensitive, and for men can simulate the prostate, an erogenous part of the male reproductive system.
For women it can also indirectly stimulate parts of the vagina.
The report, by doctors from the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, did not name what objects Brits had used.
But over the years MailOnline has reported on people using toothbrushes, aerosol cans, toy figurines, and eggs in their pursuit of sexual pleasure.
The researchers speculated the rise of internet porn and, access to sex toys, may be behind the rise in cases by inspiring people to try the practise.
The researchers, led by Swati Bhasin, worked out the average anal extraction costs almost £850 per object.
People in their 20s were the most likely to get an object stuck in their rectum followed by people in their early 50s
This price tag incorporates the costs of performing the procedure, including such factors as anaesthetic drugs, the time of health staff and the hospital stay.
Men made up the vast majority of incidents, accounting for 85 per cent of the cases.
And the over 60s accounted for about one-in-six of the total cases according to the report published in the Royal College of Surgeons of England Annals.
Most of the foreign objects were able to be removed with the use of anaesthesia in about 24 hours, with only a small number of patients requiring hospital stays longer than a day.
But the procedures still consumed valuable NHS resources, the researchers argued .
They also note their figures may be an underestimation as they do not include data from private hospitals.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the thinktank TaxPayers’ Alliance told MailOnline: ‘Of course accidents happen.
‘But taxpayers will be more than uncomfortable with the rising cost for these surgeries.’
A RCS spokesperson said: ‘The intended audience of the Annals is surgeons, and the purpose of this article is to inform surgeons about one of the rarer operations that they may have to undertake in the course of their work.’
The insertion of objects into a rectum, also known as anal play, carries a number of risks.
As well as getting stuck objects, they can also potentially perforate the bowel which can be deadly as material from the digestive tract can spill into other parts of the body, causing an infection.
The NHS advises that anyone exploring anal play do so safely, and use an object with a flared base to prevent it from getting lost inside.
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