This is, quite simply, wrong. Not wrong as in 'incorrect' but wrong as in 'immoral and indefensible':
Patients who smoke will be breathalysed to check they have given up before being referred, while those who are obese must lose 10 per cent of their weight.I know there are pressures on the NHS but singling out lifestyle choices for exclusion is not how we should respond to a lack of cash. Imagine for a moment that it's your Dad who's been told he has to quit smoking in order to have a hip operation or you Mum they're telling to lose a stone before they do her cateract operation. The people proposing these things - just to save a bit of cash - are ghastly, self-centred and uncaring, yet we're told every day how wonderful the NHS is and how it's employees are living saints. This proposal proves - once again - that the service is filled with judgemental fussbuckets.
Doctors claimed it was the latest example of rationing which is becoming 'more commonplace' across the NHS. The two trusts, East and North Hertfordshire and Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Groups, are trying to save £68 million this year.
Any patient who is obese – with a body mass index above 30 – will have to shed at least 10 per cent of their body weight before being referred for non-urgent surgery.
It is time the Government put an end to NHS Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups implementing these policies.
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3 comments:
Lifestyle choices exclusions - shall we also exclude sports injuries, skiing injuries, horse-riding injuries, mountaineering, diving, formula one drivers injuries, hurt my back digging the garden injuries etc. etc...
Hmm - could be on to a winner for the NHS fussbuckets.
The cost of treatment on the NHS is paid for out of our taxes, and I would think could be regarded as an implicit contract; we pay, they give us service.
If one side breaks that implied contract, then surely by defaulting they are rendering themselves liable to return the pre-payment that the person they are breaking the contract with has already paid them?
If so, a swift test-case on the matter would be a good idea to clarify things. Private healthcare would be more expensive for the obese, but to accept tax monies then refuse service is just plain dishonest.
Add to those exclusions HIV caught via unsafe sex between gay men - it's a lifestyle choice, just like smoking, but the NHS is still happy to throw infinite amounts of highly-expensive treatment at that condition. Strange that. It's as if they're scared of the gay-lobby, but are more than happy to preach to and discriminate against smokers.
And those gay blokes have not paid a lifetime of excise duties on their pastime, unlike the abused smokers, whose tax payments more than cover the cost of their treatment. Strange that.
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