R.I. hospital resumes gastric-bypass surgery

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island hospital where a patient died during gastric bypass surgery this fall announced Friday it would resume the weight loss surgeries after determining doctors had conducted the procedure properly.

Robert Messa, 27, died Nov. 18, about a half-hour into a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery, also known as stomach stapling.

The procedure uses staples or stitches to dramatically reduce the stomach's size and bypasses part of the small intestine to cause weight loss. Two days after Messa's death, Roger Williams Medical Center suspended the procedure. Messa's death was the third among its 340 gastric bypass operations over the past three years.