Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors

All this does is reinforce my belief that doctors these days are far less ethical than they used to be. The medical profession in general has more powerful tools to diagnose and treat, but the people behind the scenes are morally bankrupt. The pendulum continues to swing.

reply to post by Anatomic Bomb


The problem in the NHS is that the number of managers, admins and clerks has increased out of all proportion, so now we get decisions made based on what the bean counters think.

I've only met a couple of doctors who are bad, and by bad I mean less competent than their colleagues - but this is the same in any walk of life.

Originally posted by cappuccino
To some extend I can agree with the doctors. Not on the elderly, but at least on the obese. And then I do not mean a little overbite, but the digustinlgy fat jabba the hut-like people that need three seats in the stadium and are a walking hart attack - or worse. The point being that there is no point in helping these people because their problem is mainly psychological. The problem is between the ears. These people do not want to be healed. They just wabt to be fixed so they can eat some more.

I disagree with this entirely. You can't deny treatment to those who need it the most and just take on the 'easy' cases.

'The collective principle asserts that... no society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.'
-Aneurin Bevan

If the 'problem is between the ears' then make that the focus of your treatment, help them psychologically as well as physically.

The principle of the health service is equal access to all. No matter if you're rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, black or white, everyone is treated equally. A civilised society doesn't simply give up on people because to help them may be too difficult or cost too much. Eventually only the healthy sick people would be able to get treatment on the NHS, an interesting oxymoron in itself.

The politicians can practice social engineering if they wish but the NHS should remain equitable, unbiased and unprejudiced towards an individuals lifestyle choices.

Just as a side note, under these proposals Hitler (non-smoking, slim, vegetarian) would be treated but Churchill (a rather large gentleman and also a smoker) would be denied.

Behavior and views like the once stated in the OP, would stand their ground if people where responsible for their health "withour any other influences"

This is not the case... Infact its the direct opposite!

The same creepy people, responsible for the destruction of our once so pure drinkingwater, foodsources are now trying to say that we are responsible for our own health..alone...?

WTF!... Give me back a clean polution free world, where Water and food are not contaminated with the leftovers of medicine, pesticed and other toxic-waste... Then I'll be responsible for my own health...alone!

Until then, theese people of halfbrain soulless individuals, should just shut the hell up! Or be forced to work, cleaning up the mess they have already left behind!

The problem arises when Doctors become Doctors, for the primary goal of earning money, instead of for the moral satisfaction, of actually helping people!
They let themself be bribed by the pharma corporations, to put whatever suits their treasurechest into your body! give me a brake!

Whatever hapened to removing the source for sickness instead of always curing the sickness???

And don't go all exercise and no smoking on me now... the toxic-waste we are filled with every day thrue food, water and air are the PRIMARY sinners in this scenario!

I was raised in a small country with a forest and river near by, without that many cars and no industrial factories.
We got most of our meat from a local ecological animal farmer and grew must of our own vegtables.
I never got sick back then....

after i moved to a larger city to work, and started eating mass produced food, breathing poluted air, and drinking the dead substance cityfolks call tapwater, I suddently got sick all the time....flu, colds, rashes, I even developed allergi towards dogs!

And ironicly enough, after I moved out of the city to a small town with no factories and almost no vehicles, and started eating mostly ecologically grown food and grow my own vegtables again, I miracuosly never get sick, and my allergi is almost non-detectable now...

Hell can you even blame people for smoking? I mean no wonder they need something to relax their nervous system, living in this screwed toxicwaste world of present day!

So the bottom line is:
When people value money over life and nature, there is something wrong!

reply to post by Chris McGee


You are missing the point of my post.

I will try it again:
A. These people, either intentionally or not, have inflicted the problems on them selves.
B. These people only think about satisfying their needs, like junkies.

What I mean with my post is: use the pressure of not helping them as a way to change their lifestyle. These people are a hazard to themselves.

I'm not saying that we should leave 'm lying on the streets when they get hit by a bus, but I mean if they go to a doctor with overweight related problems. Im not claimig to be able to set the norm, if there is anything like a norm, but a weight of over 200 kilo's just is not normal. Again: humans are not build to weigh like that. It causes health problems. An these people knowingly inflict this on themselves. I say: suffer the consequenses.

reply to post by cappuccino


So you think addiction is something people do to themselves?

A proportion of obesity is caused by addiction - not necessarily to foodstuffs, but to processed sugars contained in food.

But if food addiction is not OK to you, is drug addiction more palatable?
or nicotine addiction?
or alcohol addiction?

or maybe the elderly have an addiction to life and don't want to die.

What I'm saying is, it's a very simplistic approach to say "that person's fat, therefore they are greedy and should stop eating as much"
And whilst this may be true in some cases, it is certainly not true for all.

Originally posted by cappuccino
You are missing the point of my post.

I will try it again:
A. These people, either intentionally or not, have inflicted the problems on them selves.
B. These people only think about satisfying their needs, like junkies.

I'm not missing the point of your post at all, I just disagree with you. Budski put it well in the preceding post but, quite simply, whether their illness or problem is self inflicted or not they should have the same rights to treatment that anyone else has.

Drug addicts, attempted suicides, obese people, alcoholics, all of these could be considered self inflicted. They deserve every bit of help that we as a society can give them to get themselves back on track however much it costs and however many times they relapse.

[edit on 29-1-2008 by Chris McGee]

Originally posted by budski
reply to post by sputniksteve

 

The NHS has been, in general, good for the country and its people over the years.

It has appeared to be on the point of breaking down for a number of years, but has survived.

Despite its faults, I would rather have this system, than the US system, which enriches only insurance companys and reduces patients to a financial bottom line - although some would say that this happens in the NHS as well.

It needs to be remembered that the NHS has a larger budget than many economies in the world today.

The modern NHS has been around for what, 40-50 years? Within less than a lifetime it's already set to collapse? So what happens to your children and your children's children being born into a bankrupt universal health care system? Too bad for them?

It's funny how communism and communist programs make it about 50 years then begin to crumble and struggle to stay afloat but there's always somebody out there to say "it'll be different this time" or "we just needed more money" You could give 100% of your nations GDP to it and all that will do is delay the inevitable another couple of decades.

Can't wait for the U.S. to institute universal health care. It's going to be fun. We already can't afford a pot to piss in so lets give free chemo to Mexico!

Someone made a comment to me last night after I posted my feelings about Bush's comments. I work in healthcare and see numerous illegal aliens coming in every single day and getting healthcare. Who pays for it? We do! As I said last night, we need to take care of our own here and leave them to their business there. And as for people who are overweight and have medical problems..I was doing a report this morning where a 10-year-old went to the ER for asthma exacerbation. He was 209 pounds. In a little bit of defense for some overweight people, it might not be their fault. They may have been taught all of their life that they can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, however they please. I can almost guarantee you the mother would have been obese, as well. Some people are just stingy and greedy and think that you can constantly eat fastfood. THOSE are the people who need to have a swift kick in their rear end. Some people have chemical/hormonal problems that make them overweight.

I can't really say anything on the smokers. My husband is a smoker. It pisses me off daily to see him doing this, but we are trying to get him on the road with Chantix. I would not want to see him denied healthcare even though he is putting himself through this.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

Yup. That's what's so fun about these crap programs.

Under capitalist systems, some things suck for some people.

Under communist systems, everything sucks for everyone.

But we won't be providing chemo to Mexico when our time comes. We've got plenty of experience in eugenics already, and they will be high on the list of "undesirables."

I just hope it will be an opt-in system. I want to keep my tax dollars and not have access to the socialized services. I doubt I will be so lucky though. Massachusetts already can't afford the numbers enrolling in their system and are going to have to fund it by force.

So what's the UK doing with their Carbon Tax surplus? Not funding the NHS I see...

Originally posted by apc
I just hope it will be an opt-in system. I want to keep my tax dollars and not have access to the socialized services. I doubt I will be so lucky though. Massachusetts already can't afford the numbers enrolling in their system and are going to have to fund it by force.

I doubt it. I've been trying to find a way to "opt out" of the garbage I'm forced to comply with already. Is sovereign citizenship too much to ask for? The government can let me die cold and alone in the middle of the woods for all I care. Just let me keep what is mine. Where's the liberty? I keep hearing it's around here somewhere but I haven't found any yet.

Originally posted by apc
reply to post by thisguyrighthere

 

Yup. That's what's so fun about these crap programs.

Under capitalist systems, some things suck for some people.

Under communist systems, everything sucks for everyone.

But we won't be providing chemo to Mexico when our time comes. We've got plenty of experience in eugenics already, and they will be high on the list of "undesirables."

So a social healthcare system is communist?

Man, do you have a lot to learn - but then I see you advocate old-style eugenics for immigrants, completely disregarding the fact that the whole of the US is a country of immigrants.

Or is it just the brown skinned variety you don't like?

What a horrible, horrible post - truly.
Advocating the ethnic cleansing of an entire nation just to save yourself a bit of cash.
I really am appalled.

Quite honestly if you've been paying in your contributions all your working life I think you damn well deserve the healthcare that everyone else does. This whole deserving/non deserving argument and the massive contradictions therein shows how far the NHS has come from it's original intentions and a convenient smokescreen to gloss over the obscene amounts of money wasted through bad management.

By the way don't smokers and drinkers make this wretched govt enough in taxes anyway to justify their heightened likelihood of needing care. Just another example of fashionable politics and acceptable demonisation/discrimination by those who would be first to point the finger if a migrant came into the country with AIDS and was denied treatment.

Further to this, a report today said that the elderly and needy are being denied the social services they need:

Elderly and disabled people in England are increasingly being denied social services, a report says.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection said councils were tightening their criteria which determines who is eligible for care.

The watchdog said the situation meant there were 281,000 people in need of help receiving none while another 450,000 suffered shortfalls in care.

source

This is due to local authoritys (councils) rather than the NHS, but is indicative of the way we are letting down some members of our society.

Give me back my tax, I will get my healthcare privately and pay extra for the elderly to receive theirs for free. The way we are going the NHS is going to be abolished, taxes are not going to be reduced and hard working honest people are going to be left without healthcare while those who do not have jobs, teenage mothers and will once again reap the benefits without any of the work.

No matter Mr Government, I'm a working single white male, please take even more of my money making me even worse off then everyone else, the UK government sucks and is as organised as a headless turd.

I live in the U.S. and have an HMO, but I spent my first 20+ years in England and experienced the NHS. Neither system is perfect and both are near the breaking point due to a lack of funds.

Socialized medicine is altruistic. It desires to treat everyone equally, no matter their age, class, race or homeland. If you have a job, you pay into the system. If you don't, or you live overseas, you may receive treatment anyway, because it's deemed a morally acceptable burden on the state.

To deny treatment is unethical. No one can make a valid argument that the life of a non-smoker is more important than a smoker's. The non-smoker might live longer, might make healthier decisions, might be less of a burden on the healthcare system, but is no more or less a citizen of the state than the smoker. His contribution to society cannot be weighed in the number of ailments he experiences in his lifetime.

The healthcare system must be blind to everything accept the patient's needs. Can the patient be treated? If yes, proceed with treatment until the money runs out.

That the money's running out, is the problem, not the patient.

When you can no longer treat everybody, you must make difficult decisions about who to help and who to ignore. There's no morally acceptable answer to that problem. If there is, I'd love to hear it.

The U.S. insurance-based system is worse, and suffering from the same disease. I hate to say it, but I think that we (in the Western hemisphere) have grown used to certain entitlements, including good healthcare. But it's not a guarantee of nationhood. The writing may be on the wall for us all.

I quit smoking a few years ago and cut out of my diet many of my favorite foods. This does not make me morally or physically superior to those who have not or cannot do so. I quit because, at the end of the day, I can't help feeling that I'm the only one who's going to be responsible for my healthcare.

Check out my blog: Esoterica in America

reply to post by budski

You read my post and think I support eugenics? ... Are you sure you read it?

What's happening in the UK is prelude to eugenics. What I meant regarding our future here in the US if we go down the same socialized healthcare road you are on, eugenics is inevitable. We, the US, were actively engaged in eugenics for most of the last century. Government sponsored. If we turn health care over to government in this country, a reemergence of eugenic policy is inevitable just as it is in yours.

No. I believe that would be a bad thing.

Originally posted by AJ Lavender
I live in the U.S. and have an HMO, but I spent my first 20+ years in England and experienced the NHS. Neither system is perfect and both are near the breaking point due to a lack of funds.

That the money's running out, is the problem, not the patient.

The funding of the NHS is at record levels in REAL terms - the problem is that the money has been mis-spent and mis-managed.

NHS Spending
2002-03: £65.4bn
2003-04: £72.1bn
2004-05: £79.3bn
2005-06: £87.2bn
2006-07: £95.9bn
2007-08: £105.6bn

source

Yes, that's right - in the financial year from april 2007 to april 2008, £105.6 billion will have been spent on the NHS - but in the wrong area's.

The NHS WILL recover, if the mis-management stops, and direct line management decreases from middle tier managers making decisions about who gets treated based on saving their own jobs.

reply to post by apc


My apologies if I mis-interpreted your post.

Eugenics lost a lot of support after the nazi's, and the modern definition of eugenics is “The science of improving stock, whether human or animal”

Whether this will be done by genetic means, or by the delibrate culling of weaker members of society remains to be seen.

Thanks for the statistics. Your point is very well made.

I agree that gross mis-management is part of the problem and that there's little use in throwing more money at it until the problem has been fixed. But, a lack of funds seems to be a near-universal complaint and other causes, beyond management, must be considered.

The cost of providing healthcare is rising globally, not just in the UK, and governments are struggling to find answers. Insurance companies in the U.S. are concerned with maximizing profits, so mis-management is quickly rooted out. Yet, insurance companies are feeling the pinch, too, and services are being curtailed to policyholders.

I fear the problems are too big to be fixed. There needs to be a paradigm shift in thinking if this or any healthcare system is to prove workable.

Check out my blog: Esoterica in America