Expect No Mercy
https://youtu.be/09l8G4vJedE
Posted on 10/18/2017 8:34:14 AM PDT by rktman
The British National Health Service (NHS) has provoked a firestorm by temporarily banning surgeries on people who smoke, and those who are obese. Patients who smoke must quit for at least 8 weeks before non-urgent surgery and obese people must lose weight before the NHS gives the go ahead.
The Telegraph:
In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients - with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time they are expected to try to lose weight or stop smoking.
But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
That was the point of my initial comment.
“... but why would a medical doctor deny them “non-essential” surgery due to a generic chart?”
No idea where you are getting the idea that the new rules require blind guidance to BMI charts.
A guy I know had knee replacement surgery. He also is 100 lbs overweight. If you ask him, he will tell you he should have skipped the surgery and emphasized losing weight.
For “non-urgent surgery” - which the rule applies to - addressing CAUSE before surgery is just good sense. And it would be reasonable for an insurance company to use the same rule - ‘we won’t pay for elective surgery until the cause of the problem is dealt with first’.
Bottom line: Those who pay the bills should have a right to say what bills they pay.
I think we are also heading this way.
We now have to offer all patients treatment for stopping smoking and if they decline or not we have to document it.
It makes the facility a little billable money, but the long game is to take smokers out of the pool.
There is no such education for people who are at risk for HIV.
Or runners who need hip and knee replacements by their mid forties, sometimes two replacement each.
Or soccer playing females who lose their knee use in their early twenties.
Or plumbers and electricians whose backs go out in their late forties.
I wonder if they make homosexual men stop what they’re doing....afterall, they live an extremely highly unhealthy lifestyle, prone to infection, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug use....
Definition of phat
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phat
And your mother wears Harkonan grav-bat boots.
.....”Bottom line:.... Those who pay the bills should have a right to say what bills they pay”.....
????? Makes no sense....Government run doesn’t inquire of taxpayers on what they pay or don’t pay, and it’s the citizens who pay tax’s.
“Will you say the same for those having sexual encounters of deviant behavior....or alcoholics....how about those who jump from one sexual ‘meet up” to another passing their diseases around married and unmarried.”
Absolutely. If someone’s sex life is CAUSING a medical problem, then they should modify their behavior before demanding surgery.
However, if they have AIDS...then treat the AIDS to the extent it can. Why? Because they already have AIDS, and it is life-threatening.
I am aware of a hip replacement that was done on a stage 4 lung cancer patient with bone metz. He lived 4 more weeks and thought he was going to get better because they gave him a new hip, so they must have thought he would live.
Residents need their lab rats.
“????? Makes no sense....”
Are you sure you are a conservative?
Government DOES “inquire of taxpayers on what they pay or don’t pay”. It is called “an election”. One party runs saying they will pay for college, and other party says it will not. Which party gets elected has consequences.
As a taxpayer, I fully support the idea that elective surgery for things like gross obesity or smoking should follow lifestyle changes.
This would be so easy to debate as lacking common sense but I’m out of time...perhaps latter.
Before Mrs. rktman quit smoking, her cardio doc would always “counsel” her and BOOM! $45.00 for ‘smoking cessation counseling’. Even after she quit, a casual question about smoking “Are you still not smoking?” would elicit another $45 charge. Finally she told the doc to quit asking cause she had quit. No more bills for the “counsling”.
discrimination ping -
how about a muslim lgbt?
As someone who is still running at 60, there is no way to know if running in your 20s will damage your knees or not. But if someone has problems with knee pain, and they run, then "Walk" might be a good prescription. Or "bike".
"Doctor! Doctor! Every time I play tennis, my elbow hurts!"
"Stop playing tennis. That will be $20!"
“It hurts when I do this.” “Quit doing ‘this’ then.”
Using the stupid BMI index, Arnold in his prime would have been considered ‘obese’ at 6’1” and 240 or thereabouts.
From the Telegraph article on the new rules, from which the American Thinker draws it quotes:
But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients “will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight” at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional.
The criteria also mean smokers will only be referred for operations if they have stopped smoking for at least eight weeks, with such patients breathalysed before referral.
Delays and restrictions are already put on surgeries all the time, from managing existing infections to requiring home health assistance as part of the treatment plan. But as others have noted, there will be entire classes of people who will not fall afoul of the new rules.
I understand your point about who is paying for elective surgery, but in England - you pay no matter what, as part of taxes; and there is no list I see that defines which "elective" surgeries are to be considered non-essential.
Yep,
I want any doctor who works on me to have already made their mistakes.
Did your wife ever stop to think that maybe the woman needed help with her knee so she could be come more mobile and lose the weight?
How obese?
There is overweight, obese and morbidly obese. All three have different outcomes.
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