Should overweight people and people that smoke be put to the back of the queue when using the NHS?

Question

Is it fair that a healthy living person should have to wait for an operation/to see a doctor because an overweight person/someone who smokes takes up there time through reasons they can control themselves?

Answer 1

Some people cant help been overweight no matter what they do and some are lazy and dont care. I think everyone should be treated fairly but if someone is getting the attention they need but still dont help themselves then that is different.

Answer 2

this has been debated many times but what if the tax they charge on fags etc was put towards a separate hospital for smokers?
You'd find that the one funded by cigarettes would have more money.

If we start looking at the nhs like that then we should also say ok people who drive too fast can't have an operation before those who drive considerately and are less likely to crash, people who don't drink or eat red meat should have an operation before others.
Everyone puts in to the system and whilst I agree that people who purposely ruin their liver (george best and co) should not be given a third chance everyone deserves that first second chance.
My grandmother smoked for 40 years, she had a heart attack and that scared her enough to give up. When she started smoking and alot of the older generations started smoking there were not any health warnings given out.

Answer 3

The tax on cigarettes is unbelievable! Have you any idea how much money the government is making out of smokers?

They contribute three times as much in tax as they cost in health care!!! 80% of what they spend, so £4 out of every £5 spent goes to the government. So everytime you see an empty cigarette packet, realise that almost £4 of that smoker's money has gone into building and maintaining the UK's schools, roads, hospitals.

Taking into account that there are 13 million smokers in the UK (more than half of the population), the amount the government receives in tax is absolutely astronomical.

If the government plan on putting smokers to the bottom of the queue, then they should reduce the tax severely... Smokers are contributing far far FAR more tax than non-smokers.

Answer 4

If that is the way you would like the nhs run,then people who are injured playing football etc should be put at the back of the queue,after all sport is a voluntary activity,they put themselves at risk,How about car owners?Their health can be affected by fumes.I know this sounds stupid,just like your idea of discriminating against smokers,& overweight people.Some time ago,I read a newspaper article which stated:An average car,travelling at average speed,causes more pollution in one hour,than the average smoker causes in 3 months.The main victims?Children in prams/pushchairs and toddlers as they are nearer to the cars' exhaust-pipe.The point is:once you start discriminating,where do you stop?

Answer 5

I agree that there is a problem. I think that if we put took money away from things like stomach stapling etc and redirected it into psychiatric care it might help. We are addressing issues too late. A child who is bullied at school could then become fat from comfort eating. Do you blame the child, the school, the parents, the other children, the cake shop etc etc. Society needs a radical shake up. People need to stop being so selfish. Parents messing up their kids lives flitting from partner to partner. Schools have too many targets to meet to care about individual children. Overstreched, underfunded mental health services, because what they achieve is less easy to quantify on a government target list. Yes these fat smokers need to get off their a***s and do some exercise, reorganise there lifestyle and not just take the quick way out, but they need support or they will just end up going back to what they were.
This all starts with instilling our children with confidence, a good lifestyle and moral structure, not things our society is valuing very much at the moe.

Answer 6

Amount of Money Spent On Treating Smokers By The NHS Per Year = £1.2 Billion

Amount Of Money Gained In Taxes On Cigarettes Per Year = £16 Billion

If they put smokers at the back of the que, It would be interesting to see how much money would be lost with people giving up.Now where would the government make up the shortfall in the tabacco taxes??? HHHMMM, Make up new taxes that EVERYONE would have to pay....sound good to anyone??
As for the larger set folk...dunno !!! Think its pretty bad treatment tho.

Answer 7

Smoking is an addiction so therefore it is a disease, and obesity is much the same. It's unethical for a doctor to pass judgement on his or hers patient's lifestyle, although obviously doctors should be advising people to quit smoking and lose weight.

It would be a slippery slope to deny people treatment because someone doesn't approve of their lifestyle-first it would be smokers, then drinkers, and how about those queers giving each other AIDS? If a guy has a heart attack running a marathon didn't he go asking for it? How about people who hurt themselves skiing or playing rugby-shouldn't the people who stay safe fishing or golfing get in ahead of them?

Answer 8

argh this type of question drives me crazy! Why should they be put to the back of the queue? The tax that they pay on the cigarettes more than pays for their treatment. Plus, some people have health reasons for being overweight. It's not always over eating!

Answer 9

A healthy living person doesn't wait for operation!!

Because he is healthy...

And your thinking is wrong. So, you want to say that we should not as well help to 60 years old man who fell from the mountain and hurt badly his leg because it is his fault he was claiming the mountain?

Smoking or even eating are treated as disease. You have to think what is wrong in our society that so many people have problems like that! And doing something on that as well...

Answer 10

I have a certain amount of sympathy with this question, but the fact of the matter is that a great percentage of the cases the NHS deal with are self-inflicted. All those heart patients who ought to have done a bit more exercise, binge drinkers having their stomachs pumped every Saturday night... To persecute the extreme cases is not the answer; we all need to change our lifestyles: eat better foods, exercise more, etc, etc