January 28, 2008

Atrocious

This is what you get with socialized medicine.

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

£1.7 billion is spent treating diseases caused by smoking, such as lung cancer and emphysema

Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as "out­rageous" and "disgraceful".

About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt.

Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money.

{...}Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services.

One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements.

{...}Ninety-four per cent said that an alcoholic who refused to stop drinking should not be allowed a liver transplant, while one in five said taxpayers should not pay for "social abortions" and fertility treatment.{...}

Doctors in the UK apparently think the only people they should treat are the people who never get sick.

Well, that would assuredly leave more time for golf.

Posted by Kathy at January 28, 2008 12:06 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I don't think medical bigotry is confined to the UK - a similar poll here would likely result in even higher percentages of medicos expressing their negative opinions on the poor, the self-destructive and the obese. Already, transplants are denied to drinking alcoholics in the USA. Many surgeons refuse hip and knee replacements to their obese patients. And surely, given the rampant Christianity governing many medical decisions, abortions and, certainly "family planning" are denied to those who cannot pay for them in many states of the union.

I know you've spent a significant amount of time in hospital of late but do understand the UK hasn't any particular lock on bigotry. It is all too predictably a fault of human nature, not socialized medicine.

Posted by: wil at January 28, 2008 01:32 PM

I don't think the UK has "any particular lock on bigotry," Wil. I just think that this sort of thing goes part and parcel with socialized medicine. My friend lives in the UK and her stepfather had to wait eighteen months to receive a NHS hip replacement. Same thing when he got his knee replaced. Waiting a year and a half for something, which, if you were in the US, you could get done tomorrow or the next day? It's ridiculous.

Just goes to show that resources are scarce as hen's teeth over there---and that's due to the fact the gov't has to organize health care for everyone. While I don't doubt for an instant that there are bean counters here in the US who would advocate the exact same treatment, they have opted for the one that makes them money---treating these people. Bigotry comes out of the closet when it costs someone money.

But none of this is relevant, because a little birdie told me somewhere that doctors were supposed to treat everyone that came in through their doors, regardless of whether they believe their patient's illness to be self-inflicted.

Posted by: Kathy at January 28, 2008 04:52 PM