Seems the difference between Sir Hillary and the forty who passed the dying man, was that Sir Hillary was wise enough to have a whole team. The forty were doing it in tiny groups or even by their lonesome.
Mr. Hillery does have access to the appropriate relevant facts. He should have given them and made sure the journalist listed them. From what I have seen and read, the outfitters up there operate no differently than Mr Hillery is claiming. At least one died recently while tending to one of his downed clients. Mr. Hillery used part of that story to denigrate the operation.
The operator (Hall, I think)was advised to return to camp, because the man was too far gone. They sent some help, but it arrived too late. In the mean time Hall was supposed to head back, which he never did. That was Hall's wife back at camp. Mr. Hillery indicated that for Hall to return is somehow bad. He indicated that Hall should have stayed there and died with the client.
In this case, Sharp chose to go it alone. He took the minimal services required by the Red Chinese. That means he had some locals carry his bags up. He didn't have an outfitting op to look after him. Mr. Sharp went up alone. After having looked into this some more, it appears Sharp never made it down and spent the night near the Summit. He froze and not having enough Ox to burn fuel, He froze real good.
It looks like he was discovered by other folks, from other outfitters the next day. They were clients, not pros. Each team that went by consisted of folks from all over the world. Inglis's team was the only one to stop to assess the man's condition. They concluded, that he was too far gone and they could not get him down to do anything about it. I believe them. I can't say they were correct, but I can say they made a fair, honest assessment, that they could do nothing to save the man.
These guys that go with outfitters do so for the same reason that Hillary did. They have a big staff to provide services. Had Mr. Sharp paid for their services, the outfitter would have provided. It's not the job of the other clients, or outfitters up there to provide for folks that show up alone.
Now if Mr Hillery was up there outfitting, He would have been in the same predicament the Inglis's group was. They would have found out around the same time the Inglis group did, but probably later. So Hillery goes up. All he can do is drag the body back to camp, or die in the attempt to bring him down.
As far as the clients go, they do not go there to risk their lives bringing back falks that are too far gone. They can do that if they want, but there's no moral obligation to do so.