I had no say in the matter.
Well, you don't want to get a nosocomial infection. I had one of those after my back surgery, and it nearly took me out. It's bad enough when you aren't trying to recover from being sliced, diced, wired, and stapled back together.
Yup,I understood that.The point I was trying to make in mentioning that was that while it's almost always a bad idea for government bureaucrats (like those at the NHS) to make decisions of this sort there are times when a procedure should be postponed (or canceled) for medical reasons...like smoking or being overweight.