"I can tell you that for the population I care for, critically ill patients, patients are generally larger, and their relative size is bigger than they were in the past," he says. Warner says doctors are having to use "clinical intuition" instead.
As obesity rates in Canada continue to climb, more people living with obesity will go to hospital for a variety of health conditions.
But hospitals and their staff are often ill-equipped to provide appropriate treatment in a timely fashion, experts say.
"Historically, people with obesity have not been valued," says University of Alberta researcher Mary Forhan.
"Their voices haven't been heard." Forhan, an associate professor in the department of occupational therapy, is researching how Canadian hospitals care for patients with obesity, and whether they're unable or unwilling to provide proper treatment.
As a man living with obesity, 50-year-old Marty Enokson has dealt with his share of public humiliation.
In 2009, complications from weight-loss surgery forced a return to hospital in Edmonton, where he shared a room with three other patients.
Some wheelchairs have larger dimensions, and blood pressure cuffs accommodate patients with larger arms.
Each floor of Humber River Hospital in Toronto has rooms designed specifically for patients with obesity, including one room in the maternity unit. At the University of Alberta, where professor Forhan conducts her research, a state-of-the-art bariatric specialty suite is used to train health-care workers to care for patients living with obesity.
But slowly, hospitals like his are becoming more sensitive to the changing size and shape of patients.
Some of the patient rooms come equipped with sturdier stainless steel toilets rather than porcelain ones. Beds are bigger and can hold a weight capacity of 1,000 pounds.
It includes wider hospital beds, stronger ceiling lifts that can easily and safely move a patient strapped in a sling from hospital bed to shower to toilet.