Steven Assanti just wanted a pizza.
The morbidly-obese Cranston, R.I. man says he was kicked out of Rhode Island Hospital after being told he had violated the conditions of his healthcare plan by ordering a pizza.
Assanti, 33, says he suffers from a food addiction that has seen his weight balloon up to 778 pounds, or 353 kilograms.
“It’s an addiction, and I realize that. And it’s a disease,” Assanti told NBC 10 News in Rhode Island.
For nearly four months, Assanti was a patient at Rhode Island Hospital as he struggled to get his weight under control. He says the plan was to get his weight down to a more manageable level before considering surgery.
“I was supposed to stay there and lose all my weight and get down to 550 to get the gastric bypass,” said Assanti. “That was their plan.”
But pizza didn’t fit into that plan. Assanti alleges it was his call to get a pizza delivery that prompted the health facility to ask him to leave.
Representatives for Rhode Island Hospital refused to discuss any aspects of Assanti’s condition or his treatment at the hospital with local media in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Assanti says since leaving the hospital he has been living out of the truck of his father’s SUV. His father Steven Veillette told NBC News that unless Assanti gets help quickly, he worries he’ll lose his son.
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