To think that people living longer is making quality of life for everyone worse?

Well said
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

In a world where a single oil company (Shell) can declare a profit of over £32 billion in 2022 while murdering the planet, I have some very good ideas about where the money could come from, believe you me. The money's there all right 😡

@WrenNatsworthy I'm so so sorry, that's utterly shit

You wrote: 'As awful as it is for us all individually to lose somebody that we love….. is curing every disease, and having us all live to 100 really a good thing if it is at the expense of quality of life for the rest of society?'

You literally questioned whether society should continue to strive towards curing diseases. And who have diseases? The sick. The disabled. So sod off with your fake 'oh Im in no way disability bashing!' bollocks. You know full well what you are.

I don’t know why
I do know, however part of the ASC money allotted on our council tax bill goes towards it.

No, come on, @Olidora, that is not a logical argument. There is a world of difference in providing healthcare to someone who has every chance of getting back to independent living, and keeping people alive who are so old and infirm that they will never be able to.

What do you think about all the people who drink, smoke and eat crap such that they take up a huge amount of the NHS's resources?

Or the increasing number of people (many of them young) with mental health problems who can't work (and maybe never will) and are living on benefits?

So are you suggesting that people shouldn’t have medical intervention? In that case we would all be dead by the age of 40 !! Ie childbirth,infection,anticoagulants…
Obviously this strategy will help your child buy a home 🤦‍♀️

It's a very hard point to make.
Until my late mum was 83 she was fit and quite healthy.
Was on no medication. Went out every day what ever the weather.
Covid hit and being stopped from going out she developed dementia.
By 2022 she had gone past the right of normality.
2023 she fell broke her hip.
From then on she couldn't walk. Incontinence soon followed.
Fortunately she died before it got worse.
I prayed every night for her to die.
That's when she should have been abled to end her life.
On her medical notes the only pill she took was for dementia

Man in the room across the corridor had been in the nursing home was worse than mum. His family kept asking for the nightmare to end.
I know no one can help to end the suffering. The law needs to change.

We are keeping people alive and in pain, distress etc.
Before the advance in medication normal age process would have taken place.
People are being kept alive longer than they should.

@crackofdoom But who is going to pay for that? The majority of people take out of the pot more than they put in. If someone retires age 67 and then lives another 30 years, do you think that it is likely that they’ve put enough in the pot over the years to pay for 30 years of pension, housing benefits, NHS care, care home fees, etc? They very likely haven’t contributed anywhere near enough.

You have to be realistic about the resources the state has.

In many ways I agree there isn't enough funding for care for my elderly relative so here we all are providing a home and full time care for her, working full time and bringing up a child. She gas a great quality of life, we don't.

This , I really hope that you are not using the elderly as a reason for your daughter potentially having a problem with buying a house !

I want to live in a society where every single person is looked after and has their needs met.

It's just bewildering to me that a demographic which is so much in need of high levels of care has overwhelmingly opted to vote for a political party determined to strip every last vestige of support from the vulnerable.

Everything is going to shit.The only thing that the government pushes is ever increasing house prices.This benefits no one except the very rich.
Tens of billions every year is paid out in housing benefit.
Indeed the increased cost of accommodation means so much more is paid in benefits even to those on a reasonable salary.
The country has an ever increasing number renting who when retired their rent will be paid out of benefits.
With the cost of housing, work just isn’t paying any more.Is it any wonder so many are on benefits.
This money tied up in housing (ie benefits to keep it all going) should be going to all the things that are going down hill now.

I know, but the poster that I was replying to said it goes towards the schools EHCP students. They don’t go to school past 18. 18-25 they’ll still have their EHCP and some will still get support financially in a different setting.

Yes there will be a decline in living standards. There is not an endless pot of money. The issue will be funding it.

Former Tory voter and I think the only way to fund it is that all savings and investments are sold to fund care. All. So no one inherits anything. It's radical. Insane.

University should be paid for by a tax. So you don't pay off your student loan, you just pay a percentage of your salary forever more. If doctors etc. leave to go and work abroad they should pay back everything.

That should raise some funds for the NHS (and keep doctors here), education is funded by those who benefit from it and avoiding inheritance pays for care.

Public services like the trains and busses should be renationalised. People should work more from home and cars should be banned.

Unfortunately the Govt in this country is so short sighted and driven by the next set of election results that no one thinks longer term. It's why environmental policy is abysmal and why in 30 years time we'll be struggling to grow crops because we've drained the soil dry like we did the mines.

We're so intend on living how we've always lived and not changing anything. And any change is met with wholesale resistance of "it will impact my mental health" or "having my nails done is a basic human right". The entitlement of people is bonkers.

I speak here as someone who has skin in this particular game as an old and frail woman.

if the opening poster really means "should the medical profession put length of life above quality of life". I'd say they absolutely should not. Quality should come top.

If, on the other hand, the poster is saying it would be better for her family and for other families too, if I died, I'd tell her to fuck off.

I've been straight with my medical practitioners. I eat well (though not much but usually get my five a day) but if they expect me to give up my red wine and the food I like but is deemed "bad for me" (prawns, bacon ect) they may as well whistle Dixey. It ain't going to happen.

the problem is that we have an aging population and are also reluctant to welcome younger people who we call "economic migrants". These are the very same people who could work and pay taxes, just as I did for forty years. But we, as a nation, say no, you may not come here and pay tax. In fact, we won't even let you work.

madness

I think one issue we have this that we go to great lengths to keep people alive in a really terrible state. Its just cruel imo. Example, a women in her late 80s to early 90s I know. She living in a care home with advancing dementia and multiple other painful health conditions for five years. The last three years she spent screaming in terror because she didn't know what was happening or who anyone was. She was also first in the queue for every vaccination going and only had to sniff for the GP to be round with antibiotics for her because if she got flu or something she might die. That poor, poor women, being kept alive in pain and terror for years extra when a short illness like flu could have freed her from her suffering. And people act like the moral thing to do is keeping her alive as long as possible.

So who's going to choose then? These are actual human beings. Very loved and wanted even those with dementia. A lot of the elderly have given working life times of service to this country. They deserve to be looked after decently.

What about if we start to withdraw medical treatment from anyone with a BMI of over 30, or an IQ of below 120?

You see, this is the problem when you start to make stupid pronouncements about human beings’ relative value, based on some quantitative Criterion which bears no relation to humanity.

This thread is why I hope we never legalise assisted suicide in the UK.

The ageism is shocking.

At that point I want the option to call it a day thanks. It's bloody outrageous that some random consultant will have the right to stuff me full of antibiotics/steroids/insert life saving but unwanted medication and keep me going unless I'm able to vociferously and competently argue that I don't want it and I have retained capacity.

You can have an advance directive to ensure that doesn’t happen. I’ve got one.