Six million people affected
Posted on 04/28/2007 3:48:41 PM PDT by Stoat
Nine primary care trusts have a specific policy to refuse joint replacements to obese patients. And four will not consider orthopaedic surgery if patients smoke.
In all, six million patients live in areas affected by so-called lifestyle rationing.
Jean Ryan has been told she cannot have her hip replaced until she loses weight.
But she says that is impossible because the pain means she can barely move, let alone exercise.
Despite living on a pension she has taken out an £8000 loan to pay for surgery abroad.
She said: "I don't think it is fair. If I lived in Bournemouth there would be no bar on being overweight. I can't see any other way round the problem. I can't see them helping. So you have to help yourself. Either that or you end up in a wheelchair."
The Sky News survey shows that in the absence of national rules, local PCTs are making up their own.
North Staffordshire has the toughest restrictions. To qualify for any routine elective operation, patients must have a body mass index below 30. They must also have given up smoking for at least three months.
Andrew Haldenby from pressure group Doctors for Reform said there should be national rules for the National Health Service.
He said: " These decisions should be taken in Parliament. These are exceptionally serious thorny questions. They get to the heart of what the NHS is."
According to Suffolk PCT obese patients are at higher risk of blood loss and infections after operations.
The PCT is also £31million in debt and Public Health Director Dr Peter Bradley said money must be used wisely.
"We have limited resources and we have to make sure we are using them to best effect. It's sensible to use that money where we know the treatment is going to work."
The Department of Health insisted that treatment is delivered according to patients' clinical need, not their lifestyle choice. And decisions are taken by doctors, not managers or politicians.
:: PCTs with a specific policy denying joint surgery to obese patients:
North Staffordshire
Stoke
Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
Milton Keynes
Hereford
West Hertfordshire
East and North Hertfordshire
Suffolk
:: PCTs with a policy denying joint surgery to smokers:
North Staffordshire
Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
Milton Keynes
:: PCTs that expect doctors to consider bodyweight and tobacco use before referring for surgery
Surrey
South Staffordshire
Dorset
Central and East Cheshire
Nice dodge, girly.
no answer?
Here’s mine.
If someone has a sport induced injury, and has surgery, or whatever, to heal it. That’s one thing. But once it is known that there is a direct cause:affect relationship that free ride should be modified.
There should be a point of a person’s taking responsibility for the dangerous things he does.
Why on earth should health insurance (fully) pay for a joint replacement on a heavy person when for one thing there will probably be difficulties, and in any case he caused it willfully.
The real problem is the health insurance situation as we know it. Health insurance should be just that: Insurance against catastrophy, not a freebie that takes away individual responsibility.
Don’t you think someone who would have to bear the entire cost of his knee replacement might just be a little more attentive to his bathroom scale?
Every year thousands of young men are injured, and some killed, on the high school football field. Some are paralyzed for life, which you are paying for. Shall we do away with the sport? Same for diving, swimming, tennis, basketball and field hockey.
See, I think you just don't like fat people. But face it, babe -- you need fat people to feed your sense of smugness and to fire that judgmental furnace that lies at the heart of your personality.
Don’t you think someone who would have to bear the entire cost of his knee replacement might just be a little more attentive to his bathroom scale?
I’ll take your rambling to mean ‘yes.’
(when you can follow a line of logic without getting all testy, personal and defensive, ping me.)
If you can ever present a line of logic, ping you I shall.
There is Universal Healthcare in a nutshell.
A snotnosed government worker deciding whether you can get healthcare.
No Thanks
Treatment is being denied based on a patient's behavior in causing his/her problems, so fairness dictates that all voluntary behavior should be treated the same. Take intravenous drugs or engage in unsafe sex practices and get AIDS, ride a motorcycle and get your bones broken, climb a mountain and snap your spine, any unnecessary risk should lead to denial of government-provided treatment if that's the standard.
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I posted the link to the source along with the other data, but here it is again:
This company appears to be dedicated toward helping overseas patients gain medical treatment in the USA, (which is part of the context of the original article posted) and so they might not be set up to assist a resident of the USA. Asking them will never hurt, however. Good luck to your friend (and yourself!) :-)
Many thanks.
So I assume since the system has opted out of treating smokers and fat people, that smokers and fat people can opt out of paying the taxes that fund the system? No?
Or some type of cranio-sacral inversion disorder.
They might have trouble getting individual coverage. If they got a job which provided insurance, I believe it's still rare though becoming more common for individuals to be refused or their employers charged higher premiums for specific risks.
IMHO, you can't sell insurance, which is intended to pool risk, and then refuse anybody with a risk. Then you've failed to provide value, because everyone you're willing to insure loses money by being insured and would be better off paying out of pocket.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that if I were you....I'm still waiting for parents of homeschooled children to be allowed to exempt themselves from paying taxes that go to the Government schools, since they are not deriving a benefit from that Government 'service' :-)
Scool taxes are a little different, because they are paid by people eligible to use the services as well as those who aren’t. But, it does seem like home schoolers should get the same money from the state that the district would get, or a tax credit for the same amount (including the land and building value, which districts receive free).
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