Should smokers, drinkers, drug users and obese people be charged to see the doctor?
Watch this postIt seems reasonable to me, after all, they consume a very large chunk of the NHS budget, so I think it's entirely appropriate that they stump up for their treatment. What do you think?
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If they have lived abroad for more than ten years, then possibly not. However I do strongly believe those who have lived in the UK until government retirement age and then want to live the rest of their lives in a better climate should of course be entitled health care here.
Earlier this year I went for a free check up with the nurse as my doctors surgery and she told me I needed to lose weight and she was a lot bigger than me! :/
their G.P through prescriptions, treatment ,blood samples, hospital visits ,,everything. Needless
to say ,doctors surgeries are not ever full, and patients DO get more than the frantic ten minute
window ,we have to endure. Every pensioner pays nothing ,and is treated very well
The Health Service here now has too many people sucking the life out of it for trivial problems.
which ,if they had to pay for "treatment " would treat themselves.
Man up, for heaven's sake, take responsibility for your life.
The problem with estimates, they are just that and can not be accurate enough to account for all eventualities. I recall blowing my total whole months drugs budget on one patient in one day to save her life as she had reacted to her illness in a way no one had witnessed before, but I wasn't given extra money to account for that. I just had to try and adjust my units costs to accommodate the unexpected.
I believe that until the public understands the true cost of health care we will continue to have a problem in providing everything people expect regardless of who manages the NHS. When a Government talks about how they have given an 'extra' so many million pounds to the NHS someone needs to ask the question as to how that breaks down for each and every NHS facility, I doubt if they would be able to answer and if they did people would realise the addition income was insufficient to meet the overall needs.
When considering the cost of providing health care it may give some understanding as to why celtwitch may have raised the question of who pays! I don't have the answer but I could never discriminate against the vulnerable or needy just because they may have contributed to their ill health, that is not why I made a career in the NHS. As to funding, I don't think there will ever be enough as medical science moves forever forward and demands increase.
I have often found that those people with first hand experience of the NHS are often coming from the direction of chronic conditions, haemophilia, chronic renal failure etc. and therefore often do not understand the issues that may face people with acute health problems, never the less they make a valid contribution to debates. I agree we need more assertive people with understanding of grass roots issues before change can take place but I doubt I will see it happen.
And what about people who take part in sports and other activities where they could be injured, should they pay too? Or some pedestrians....the very elderly, the very young, the disabled, the hearing impaired, the sight impaired, for example, who might cross a road less carefully? It's a choice to play sport or cross a road.
If you extrapolate this out to everyone who takes any kind of everyday risk, we'd all be paying for our own treatment!
Our NHS is an amazing thing and something that we should fight to keep, meeting the needs of people at their "point of need".
To pick on certain elements of society, I feel, is totally unfair, yes obesity is a huge, forgive the pun, problem, many many overweight/obese people are that way for a variety of reasons beyond overeating.
No drug/alcohol abuser wakes up one morning and says "I know! I've never been an addict, I think today I want to be a drug addict/alcoholic" I was married to an alcoholic - addiction is as much a state of mind/physiological - to suggest that these "selfish" people should be charged is unreasonable. My husband was helped greatly by the NHS but he still drank himself to death. Hence my suggestion that all those other things should be charged too, albeit ironically, after all, if folk didn't have a genetic disposition then they wouldn't be diabetic, overweight, have a heart condition and so on - I blame the parents!
There is no easy answer - and it certainly isn't charging folk to see a doctor.
Perhaps we should be looking to the people who make all the junk food, McDonalds to name but a few.
Stop companies making alcopops, selling booze so cheaply, having happy hours.
Stop the breweries from taking over old disused churches and turning them into pubs/bars.
Increase the police force and army, arm them all and let's live in a police state that stops people from becoming addicts and obese.
Now there's a thought - she said tongue firmly in cheek.
Anyone who thinks the NHS is a right should read James Bartholomew's 'The Welfare State We're In.'
Also embassies will pay the bill for certain diseases and under certain conditions will also pay for specialist treatment but it is usually pre-arranged. A great deal of the 'abuse' of the NHS is by people British by birth who believe they have a right to 'free' treatment.
There is plenty of education about to inform people of the harm certain lifestyles can cause but a large number of people think it doesn't apply to them and it isn't just the young; neither is it just smokers, drinkers, drug users and obese people!
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Fashion shoes! Ye gods, what's wrong with blacking your feet and lacing your toes up, it's much healthier than FASHION SHOES and the bunions they cause.
Can't have children...what's that all about,m and who would want the little blighters anyway? Children are nothing but noise with dirt on it, greedy, selfish little oiks that no sane person could possibly WANT?
And 'gender change' for heaven's sake, what is the world coming to Pauline, I said to my husband?
I think people who visit with gp often are usually people in need of medication, I don't think celtic is talking about drug users in clubs or on the street ... yet her comments do contradict that.. confused.com
even very rich people look to the NHS for treatment who could afford to pay but don't, the NHS was formed after the war for people who served our country were wounded or died I think they deserve a life of treatment considering what they went through for us, and some may have taken to drink etc because of what they had to endure, not to put everyone who drinks in a box of good for nothing people without even knowing why they do....
real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance. quote..
Eating Disorders - Anorexia/Bulimia and so on ......