‘Young girl’ who was ‘not overweight at all’ needed emergency care after illegally buying weight loss drug Wegovy from Boots, and medics warn they are seeing similar cases every shift

Doctors claim a ‘young girl’ required emergency care after taking Boots’ slimming jab Wegovy under false pretenses, in what they warned was a growing trend.

The doctor, who spoke anonymously, said their patient had been given the drug, which contains semaglutide, the same ingredient as Ozempic, from a Boots Online Doctor.

She went to the emergency room and felt “unwell, like she was going to pass out and couldn’t get up… she was really having trouble eating,” according to the doctor who spoke to the pharmacy’s website Chemist and Druggist.

The patient was reportedly not overweight ‘at all’ but had apparently managed to secure a month’s supply for around £150 – and the doctor claimed to be ‘absolutely shocked’ by the case.

The girl, whose age was not disclosed, was being treated for ‘starvation ketoacidosis’, a potentially life-threatening problem caused by prolonged fasting that causes harmful substances called ketones to build up in the body.

Ozempic and Wegovy work by mimicking a hormone that tells the body to completely suppress appetite, and it is suggested that this caused the girl’s health problems.

Ozempic and Wegovy work by mimicking a hormone that tells the body to completely suppress appetite, and it is suggested that this caused the girl’s health problems.

The doctor who reported the girl’s case claimed this is just the latest in a growing pattern of similar incidents in which patients who should not have received the drug needed emergency medical care.

They said that during each shift for the past two months, they had a patient suffering from a complication from weight loss medications.

They added that in many cases the patient had managed to get the drugs from an online pharmacy or a private beauty clinic.

“Without a doubt, none of them would fully meet the criteria,” they claimed.

Another alarming case involved a patient who suffered acute pancreatitis after receiving the weight-loss shots, and “ended up going to intensive care.”

According to NHS guidelines, only patients with a body mass index (BMI) over 35, or a BMI of 30 and at least one weight-related health problem, such as high blood pressure, should be prescribed Wegovy.

Although private prescribers are not bound by this, they should still follow general professional guidelines and take into account national guidelines to ensure that only patients who need the medicine can access it.

However, the doctor who reported the girl’s case said that this does not happen and that if this pattern continues, the patient’s death is almost inevitable.

Although patients should in theory provide photos and notify their GP of their prescription when they get it from an online prescriber, the doctor said these so-called safeguards are being circumvented.

The doctor reported that patients are editing photos and that time-poor GPs do not have time to raise the alarm if a patient, whom they may not have seen, receives a Wegovy prescription.

“Boots asks for a photo of you, but I can obviously put any photo of someone overweight on it,” they told the website.

‘And then they also asked for your GP’ as a ‘safety mechanism’ – but ‘GPs are under enormous pressure at the moment (so) I can’t imagine them going through all this,’ they claimed.

Responding to the claims, a spokesperson for Boots said it was concerned about the matter and would like to “fully investigate” and has encouraged any medical professional or patient in the case to get in touch.

They also emphasized that “patient safety is our number one priority” and that the company has “put a number of safeguards in place” for its online weight loss services.

This includes ‘answering questions about their medical and psychological history and providing a photograph’, and Boots ‘informs each patient’s GP as an additional safety measure and can contact the patient’s GP if necessary’.

Ministers have pinned hopes on using slimming pills such as Wegovy to tackle Britain’s ballooning obesity crisis and get more Britons back to work.

However, critics say we risk medicalising obesity rather than tackling the poor diet and lack of exercise that cause the condition in the first place.

There are also concerns about possible side effects of the medicines and the fact that patients prescribed it will have to take the injections for the rest of their lives to maintain their weight.