By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

TAYSIDE FIRE and Rescue crews have been called out 21 times in the last 12 months to help move very obese people.

The local picture emerged after firefighters in Grangemouth were called to a house four times in one week to lift a 41-stone man.

On one occasion, 10 firefighters had to move Robert Marsden two feet across his bed at his home in Grangemouth, Stirlingshire.

Yesterday the Fire Brigades Union demanded a change in guidelines for helping obese people.

A spokesman for Tayside Fire and Rescue said firefighters were called into assist, sometimes by paramedics and sometimes by individuals’ care workers.

Sometimes people needed help to move within their own homes and other times they needed help to get from their home to an ambulance waiting outside.

He said the Tayside firefighters had no special equipment and used “brute force” to assist.

Fire brigade leaders have complained their crews should not be dealing with such matters when they could be called out to an emergency.

And yesterday a union official said a meeting had been organised between various agencies to discuss a new strategy for tackling the problem in the Grangemouth area.

Four call-outs were made to Mr Marsden’s council flat last week. The Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Service crews attended three times after one call was cancelled.

Gordon McQuade, local secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said, “If someone is in need of urgent medical attention and a doctor or medical personnel think firefighters should go and help that is no problem.

“But this was not the case.”

He went on, “The crews had to move the gentleman two feet across the bed. We’ve got no specialist equipment—it was sheer brute force.”