PGI Restarts Bariatric Surgery After Zero Cases in 2024

PGI Chandigarh's department of general surgery has resumed its bariatric surgery programme after a full-year hiatus, completing three Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomies in 2025. The restart follows a period in which the programme recorded zero surgical cases throughout 2024, raising questions about how the growing adoption of GLP-1 receptor agonist weight-loss injections may be reshaping referral patterns and surgical caseloads at tertiary care institutions.

For hospital administrators and surgical department heads at public-sector institutions, the trajectory at PGI offers an early signal worth monitoring. A programme that went dormant for an entire calendar year and then returned with three procedures described as high-impact suggests that surgical intervention still occupies a defined, if narrower, role in obesity management. As injectable therapies such as semaglutide and tirzepatide continue to gain traction, institutions maintaining bariatric capabilities will need to evaluate how patient selection criteria, pre-surgical protocols, and post-operative quality metrics evolve alongside pharmacological alternatives.

The coexistence of bariatric surgery and weight-loss injectables reflects a broader shift across healthcare systems globally. Surgical programmes that once served as a primary intervention pathway for morbid obesity are now operating in an environment where pharmacotherapy can deliver clinically meaningful weight reduction without the perioperative risk profile associated with gastrointestinal procedures. For quality assurance teams, this dynamic introduces new considerations around maintaining surgical competency and ensuring that low-volume programmes continue to meet patient safety benchmarks.

PGI's decision to revive the programme, rather than discontinue it, indicates institutional confidence that a subset of patients will continue to require surgical options. The three completed Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomies in 2025 represent a modest but concrete resumption of activity after the 2024 gap. How this caseload trends over the coming quarters will be instructive for peer institutions weighing similar resource allocation decisions.

Source: Pharmaceutical Industry News, published 20 April 2026.