Surgery for Smokers...

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Okay this may have been mentioned before but I haven't been around for a while. Recently in a county near where I live in UK surgery such as hip and knee replacements is being refused to people who smoke. The only way they are allowed the surgery is if they sign up for quit smoking programmes.

Don't get me wrong, if this surgery was relevant (Like for lung cancer or heart disease) then I could understand it (If not agree). But it greatly incenses me the amount of pressure currently being put on smokers by the government to give up smoking.

Yes it is beneficial to everyone to give up smoking and they do cost a lot on the NHS but they also create a vast amount of tax revenue that must easily counterbalance this.

Does anybody else think the government is wrong to try and forcefully impose their views about smoking on peeps who do so out of their own choice?

 

No, the tax revenue gained from selling cigarettes is not nearly enough to cover the health risks that you get from smoking and other people get from passive smoking.

I might be considered a smoker, but I think that it's right to limit smoking any means necessary and putting a no surgery on operations that are not a question of life and death is much more efficient than making selling and buying of cigarettes illegal.

Basically cigarettes are a deadly luxury good, which no-one should afford, not individuals, not the society and definitely not the humankind.

So why do I smoke? Probably bound to be asked even though it's off topic. I guess I could count as having a mild clinical depression for at least six months now because I broke up with my ex. I've been smoking exactly because it's self-destructive, but it is more addictive than some of the hard drugs as well.

Now I feel like buying a pack, but damn it! I'm not going to! I've every reason to quit and so does anyone who smokes and we need all the help in quitting that we can get. Additional motivation is a great thing.

 

Personally I would not protest if the banned smoking alltogether. I smoke cigars now and then in bigger occations but that's it, I would not be bothered too much to give that up. I feel smokers should be responsible for health problems caused by smoking and I definently agree with the policy they have set in UK. There should be conditions for free health care, if you want to damage your body then fine pay it yourself. Smoking is a bit problematic though since I can't simply agree that someone with lung cancer should be left without proper care, that would be just inhumane. It is obvious that the government is trying to lessen smoking which I'll fully support but I'm not sure if it's right to deny people of health care that have nothing to do with their smokin habits.

Indeed, I would agree that this might be a good idea rising the taxes for smoking products so high that they would actually pay back their future health problems. However I think many smokers would protest for having to pay 200e or so for a pack of smokes. It would not work though since people around here would just get their smokes from Estonia or Russia.

 

I don't dispute that it's a good idea to give up smoking, and in a perfect world I would've given up ages ago myself, but the fact is it's being forced upon us. I choose to smoke, against everybody's advice but it's still my choice. Would you forbid heroine addicts a bunion removal? Or stop alcoholics from having caratacts removed? Very doubtful.

 

There's almost nothing that is good about cigarette smoking, so you won't get any sympathy from me. Sorry.

 

Denying medical help is appalling, whatever the reason. What the hell happened to the Hippocratic Oath? Is it right to perform surgeries on serial rapists but not smokers?

 

Us smokers can live without our knees and hips replaced. This might make the choice more concrete, it's either smoking, suffering from bad health and dying because of it, or get something done about it.

With a narcotic substance more addictive than heroine or cocaine that will bring a withering death I wouldn't say that it's a question of free will anymore.

Actually denying surgery for a knee replacement if one doesn't start quitting smoking is acting on Hippocratic Oath. Smoking causes disease worse than a flunky knee or hip, so which one would you start curing if you're a doctor and you'd have to start prioritizing? What's the use of repairing knees and hips if a person is set to kill himself by taking a dose of arsenic and several other deadly toxins every day?

 

If the government wants to ban smoking, it really ought to just ban smoking. Blackmailing people into signing up for 'quitting' programs is just stupid.

And unethical. I mean, really; "sure, we'll replace your hip. If you stop smoking." What the hell is that?

 

Do they also deny medical attention to people who attempted to commit suicide? I don't think so. Doing harm is forbidden by the Hippocratic Oath (whether by action or inaction), but allowing someone to harm themselves while not under the doctor's care falls outside their responsibility. Any good doctor will repeatedly advise their patients to stop smoking for health risks, but they do NOT have the right to make them do so, just as they do not have the right to perform a life-saving surgery against the patient's express wishes.

 

I'm all for surgery for rapist... if castration could be considered surgery.

 

Smokers obviously don't care for their health, so I think its only fair that they should be considered low priority. I also think the government should also take a similar approach for alcholics and the super obese.

 

Anyone attempting suicide, who has tried suicide several times needs psychiatric help.

I'd consider this solution as a forced treatment for people who are not in control of their faculties. Now suggesting quitting cigarettes would be fine if it would be as easy as that. Might as well suggest a junkie that he should quit and expect results. You don't even get any results with drug users and the treatment doesn't go anywhere unless they have the feeling that they have to quit, that they have enough reasons for quitting, and that they can allow themselves to quit using drugs. Even then you can't really say if the treatment's going to be succesful or not.

There's a lot of neurological and personal psychological causes why people smoke. Getting it through that they should quit is a very hard thing to do.

And like Cúchulainn said, it's a prioritizing thing. I might be inclined to prioritize alcoholics and super obese low priority on physical health care, but I think that they should increase the funds for psychological treatments and psychiatry.

 

/me takes a pot of tea and plate of cookies and goes to sit with Harbs.

 

Just so we are clear on this:

The cost to the NHS in the UK of treating smokers for smoking related conditions is less than the tax collected on tobacco products by the government.

Thus there can be no justification for not treating smokers for those conditions.

Smokers are no more or less likely to need hip replacements etc than non-smokers, but since we have a free at the point of delivery all inclusive health service, they have no right to deny smokers treatment for non smoking related conditions either.

As a smoker, perhaps I should refuse to pay my taxes that go to treating non-smokers? Pah.

Ban smoking or get lost with this sort of stuff. I'm pretty sure it could be challenged in court regardless.

 

I think they decided this because the same people keep on having to go to hospital for smoking-related illnesses, but actually fail to quit smoking, making the operation they had more or less a waste of governmental money. therefore, they want to make sure people who are suffering from smoking-related diseases don't just keep coming back and wasting precious NHS money.

(edited cause I dunt spel gud)

[ November 13, 2006, 19:38: Message edited by: Clixby ]

 

I appreciate that, but the taxes on tobacco outweigh the cost to the NHS.......

 

Except there are about 50 different things to help you quit at this point. Gums, patches, numerous organizations and support groups... And I'll bet any doctor can suggest at least a couple in their area when talking to a smoker who's on the fence about the idea. The main problem is that people are stupid. But forcing people to go a certain way against their wishes is, again, NOT what a doctor should be doing.

Actually, no. It's already just about world policy to deny lung transplants to smokers because they'll just ruin the new lung on purpose. This is about denying surgeries that have absolutely nothing to do with their smoking. I'm pretty sure smoking can't make you break a hip or knee. When it's something common sense like not wasting rare (and crucial) organs on people who'll just ruin them like their last set, I'm fine with that. But turning smokers into second-class citizens by denying them all medical care? Whoever thought that up needs their head examined.

 

@ Viking: Which is precisely why they don't ban smoking completely. IMHO they're trying to cut back on "Non-essential surgeries" and as the whole jazz at the moment is on giving up smoking, they can get away with it.

Edited cause Fel got there first

 

Actually, given the premise of free healthcare at the point of delivery - I'm really hoping *they* will not get away with it!.

Someone will actually win that courtcase, I'm pretty certain.

 

The quitting programs are useless, I used to be almost a chain smoker, but I stopped smoking by purging all of the nicotine from my body, and with the help of Mr Allan Carr. The method the government here use to get people to stop smoking is a big bad waste of money, and all of these nicotine patches, and gums are highly ineffective, and are just another nicotine product which many people become addicted to in the place of cigarettes.

Allan Carr clinics have a 90% success rate, and refund money when the treatment fails. So why doesn't the government send people there instead of wasting millions and millions on advertising campaigns and useless nicotine substitutes? Any ideas?

Regarding the surgery issue, the goverment have a responsibility to these people so long as they allow tabacco to be sold legally, and we all have friends and family who smoke, would you like to see them die because they are denied medical treatment because of their nicotine addiction? In the UK btw, the government makes far more money from taxing tabacco, than it costs them in treating smoking related health issues. I don't know whether it's the same in the US, but I know in the US they pay a lot less tax on tabacco products.