to think that Human Rights has a lot to answer for in this obesity related death.

[meyesmyeyes]

A lot people are saying, Well why were people getting him that food? Why weren't they saying No? and why weren't the 'Carers' refusing to give him his takeaways etc.... OK, he would have sworn at them, but he couldn't get out of bed, so wouldn't have been able to harm them for not getting him his junk food.

the human rights act allows him to do what he wants if carers do not comply they are in the wrong and are liable to lose their jobs psychiatrists have to prove they do not have the capacity -- very few people come under this sadly

So surely, this poor man was failed miserably by a system that was supposed to help him?

People should have been in a position where they were able to say 'no' to him. But because of a flawed human rights system, this man has lost his life.

Aussie mum - this is an adult. Parent child responsibilities only last until 18, it is not the same. When my son (who will not have capacity) turns 18 I will not be allowed to make decisions on his behalf. I can now, but in under 2 years I will not be allowed to.

fascicle you can't say that people should be allowed to make choices, unless they can't fetch food themselves in which case a carer gets to decide. People either have the right to choice, or they don't.

Mamadoc Aha - a clear answer at last. Thank you. That is interesting about detox. So someone overcoming, say, heroin addiction has to fight the urges at the peak of withdrawal? Do a lot of people leave at this stage? I suppose there's medication that eases the withdrawal (methadone etc) given? What about the environemnt? eg, someone to talk to? I see people 'self-medicating' because they don't have the support needed to face their 'demons' without their crutch... Is that where this sort of thing falls down?

Miscellaneous Just . That is beyond appalling. And poor pay etc is no excuse to treat service users badly, anyone who thinks it is should not be anywhere near ill/disabled/vunerable people. Mind you poor pay and conditions are largely responsible in a "pay peanuts, gets monkeys" kind of way.

Btw, the people I employ now directly have good working conditions, pay and contracts. And they don't abuse me. All on the same money (in fact less) than the council spent on my 'care' via agencies. This is why no-one should profit from care. This makes me want to get back into care and set a up social interest organistation thingy (?) for care, so people draw a wage, running costs covered, and that's it.

As one of the people saying "something should have been done" for this man, I want to make it clear that my view is NOT to scrap the human rights act, or even that this is an issue here. As far as I know, this man asked for help, and that is where I felt there should maybe be a process by which he could voluntarily relinquish certain freedoms for a set time whilst beating his food addiction. Or just some kind of holistic care which under the present overstretched system was almost certainly not provided. Ridiculous when compared to the longer term costs of carers etc, or medical care had he survived. Its the same in mental health care - even if someone realises they've got a problem they have to get 'ill enough' to receive help. Which costs more in the long run! (Not to mention benefits, housing, policing, ambulances...)
I actually know someone now who's thinking about getting medication to make themselves unable to drink alcohol (or v sick when they do, anyway). This medication would, in a way, remove their 'right' to drink alcohol. I realise it's not quite the same, but in essence they are saying "I am choosing this (giving up drinking) now, but physical intervention to stick to this choice over the coming weeks".

It is legal to make stupid decisions.

But I'd see this through the lense of assisted suicide. An addict has the right to use drugs, but if I prepare the needle I can be criminally responsible?

If a parent feeds a child like this, it is neglect? If a patient demands medication that will cause harm, should a doctor prescribe it?

I think he does have the right to eat himself to death, but a carer does not have the right to assist in that death.

A parent over feeding a minor is a very different scenario to an adult with mental capacity deciding to overfeed themselves.

Prescription medication is not a right. It is only available at the discretion of people highly trained in the field, never by demand. That gives the Dr every right (and indeed obligation) to say "no" if the drug is not appropriate for the patient. Food is available to all. There are no restrictions on it. No-one has the legal right to say "no" to another adult who wishes to eat something deemed inappropriate.

You agree that a person has a right to eat themselves to death if they so wish. As has already been mentioned earlier in this thread, people are completely misunderstanding the role/power of a Carer. A Carer is not medically trained (past a basic level). They are there, in a person's home, to help that person do whatever it is they can no longer manage for themselves. You may view cooking & serving fatty foods to an obese person who chooses to eat them as "assisting in a death". The law would consider refusing to do so as abuse of a vulnerable adult.

Carers can no more refuse to serve a certain food (and in this case, the man was shopping himself online) than they can refuse to pass a smoker their cigarettes or allow an alcoholic to purchase vodka on a supervised shopping trip.

A Carers role is to help a person to live their own life the way they choose. The way they would live were they physically able to. Not to judge. Of course you can make suggestions - after all, most Carers actually DO care (contrary to popular belief) - but you can do nothing if the person isn't interested in those suggestions.

As has already been said, this man and any like him, will have see many many HCP's over the years. If highly trained, professional people haven't managed to persuade a person to change their habits why would anybody expect the hired help to be able to?

Landrover - probably because nobody not privy to his financial status could know that.

He may have been using up savings.

He may have managed because food was almost all he had to spend money on.

He may have been getting hugely into debt to buy so many takeaways.

I don't know.

element, but in the case of taking a pill to make you sick when you drink alcohol you are still making that choice for yourself. You choose to take the pill. You can still choose to drink alcohol (though it would make you sick). What the OP was originally suggesting was taking away this man's right to choose. Which is quite scary really.

In the case of suicide it comes down to capacity again.

Drs do not prevent people who have mental capacity from killing themselves (see the case of Kerrie Wooltorten for an example). It's just that in the vast majority of cases people kill themselves because they are mentally ill not through a rational choice and therefore the mental health act is invoked so that they can get treatment and not want to do it anymore.

People in the UK are quite at liberty to kill themselves just not to get medical help to do it.

This guy had mental capacity to make choices. He was not killing himself directly just he was making unwise choices that hastened his death (as every smoker does every day).

If a carer was asked to put a pillow over someone's head or administer a drug overdose they would not do it (I hope) because that is illegal. If they were asked by a disabled alcoholic to buy vodka they could discuss with him why that was not a sensible choice but in the end they would be required to fulfill the person's request as long as it is not illegal. If they did not like that they could quit the job. That's all they could do.

As already discussed the comparison of a parent and a child is a fallacy because the person in this case is a competent adult not a child.

People seem to want to make this more complicated than it is:
A competent adult made bad choices that hastened his death.
He was not mentally ill within the definition of the mental health act and he did not lack mental capacity therefore there was no legal mechanism to infringe his liberty to make choices.
Carers assisted a capacitous, disabled person to fulfill his unwise choices as required by their employment contract.

There is no valid analogy with parents and children and no valid analogy with assisting suicide as that was not the intent of his actions.

mamadoc
Drs do not prevent people who have mental capacity from killing themselves (see the case of Kerrie Wooltorten for an example).
That case was heartbreaking. Almost brought it up myself on this thread. Why some people, when clearly very mentally affected, are not helped I don't know. Yet someone else with a different 'label' would have been saved. It's disgusting the way people are catergorised as deserving/undeserving in this way. And I'm talking about help before it gets to the stage where suicide seems the only solution (hence her advance directive). Had anyone offered her the care she needed on one of her previous attempts? Unlikely. I know firsthand how people can be judged and condemned even though they're crying out for help with solving their issues.

That's not meant to be personal, more a rant at the system/society!

Well personally I think she was mentally ill and I would have sectioned her but that was not what the judge ruled.

She had apparently been sectioned a lot of times before so I surmise that people had tried/ were trying to help her. Sometimes treatment fails, people don't engage etc but I do think we should keep on trying.

My point in bringing it up is that there is a high level of respect for personal autonomy in this country even including a right to refuse life saving treatment and that there are very few times that can be legally overridden.

He could afford to eat like that because greasy junk food is cheap.

I feel when it became apparent he was over-binging on junk food to a point it was dangerous and detrimental to his health, he should have been sectioned. Im sure carers would have warned and advised him against what he was doing - can't have been nice for them having to provide him with the junk food he wanted.

But that kind of addiction to junk food is serious, its abusing the body and I wish he'd been sectioned so his life could have been saved. Whether that would have been deemed a breach of his human rights, I don't know. But he very clearly needed help

Smokers over their often shortened lifespan pay huge amounts of tax on their habit, and don't require 24 hour care (for long anyway) .

What happens if a morbidly obese person such as this guy asks for two litres of vodka a day, then becomes violent? Is that allowed? You can't section an alcoholic if they're never sober.

He wanted help allegedly, he wanted the choice taken from him, so his fridge gets filled with health foods, that's all that's available, and local takeaways are fined for delivering food to him. Then when he's at a weight where surgery can be done, he gets it. Get him to sign documents that support this. It's unbelievable in this day and age we are allowing this- I was watching a programme about a guy who couldn't get a job due to horn implants on his head and his eyeballs tattooed black. Most of his face was covered in tattoos. He's effectively ensured he will never work.

If he wants to stuff himself to death on junk food that's up to him. I'd hate to live anywhere where the state decided I was fat enough and had to eat healthy food. Anything is preferable to that sort of nanny state.

Given the crap that the likes of the Daily Mail will be coming out with over the next few years can it please be pointed out again that sectioning is nothing to do with the Human Rights Act. If you sit back & passively allow the HRA to be abolished people like this won't suddenly be 'helped' (by being sectioned if you think that is helping someone in these circumstances - I don't personally).

The HRA protects disabled people from cuts (eg it prevented a council leaving a didabled person lying on soaked bed pads all night, rather than having a carer come in to change her). Don't be fooled into thinking it's a nonsense piece of legislation. You may need it one day.

Landrover- I don't understand why you want MN to tell you how he could afford junk food? Aside from the fact we obviously don't know, how does anyone afford food? Maybe he was from a wealthy family?

And to those who think carers shouldn't purchase fags/booze, what not? Refuse to buy wine for the woman who likes a glass with supper? Refuse to buy fags for the woman with no smoking related health problems? Why?

I feel the need to say again that you cannot be 'sectioned' ie detained under the mental health act for drug or alcohol addiction or for overeating as these are not considered mental disorders within the meaning of the mental health act.

Tbh I find the thought of being able to section for addiction or overeating really quite scarey. I don't think I'd like to live in that society.

saintlyjimjams
fascicle you can't say that people should be allowed to make choices, unless they can't fetch food themselves in which case a carer gets to decide.

I said I was very much in favour of people making their own decisions, but your sentence as a whole is not at all representative of my views. I have already said that it's not appropriate for carers to make such decisions.

People either have the right to choice, or they don't.

You and I have a different perception of choice in relation to this case. This man's day to day food choices reflected an addiction that would inevitably lead to his imminent death. But he didn't want to die, he wanted to get better (my views would change if this detail was different). Why was his wish to get better less valid than his eating decisions (and how much of a choice is compulsive eating)?

Since food is an essential requirement and not illegal and given the sufficient distance between this man's eating habits and his death, his situation is somehow seen as acceptable. No doubt the NHS purchasing illegal substances on behalf of a patient, resulting in a death directly attributable to their consumption, would be likely to constitute malpractice/negligence/manslaughter and would not be an option. I wonder if you would regard a refusal to purchase drugs for a patient in the community as an infringement of their freedom, or does your perception of choice coincide with what's legal and what's not? I've already pointed out contradictory attitudes in practices and in law regarding allowing a person to die, dependent on the circumstances in which a preventable death takes place. I would expect anybody who doesn't have an issue with this man's case to be able to reconcile the differences in attitudes (legal and otherwise) towards suicide, assisted dying, and a situation such as this man's.

I also find it hard to believe that anybody endorsing this man's treatment and outcome would be happy to facilitate and support the rights of those they love to feed an addiction with a likely probability of death. I am struggling to think of any examples of cases where this has happened and has been seen as acceptable.

Fascicle GPs will
Generally continue to prescribe benzo's to patients who are addicted. I know of patients who have been prescribed them for 20 years. It's an incredibly difficult addiction to cure (even more so than illegal drugs and booze apparently) and the resources aren't there to do it. The patient can't be cut off so the prescriptions continue

You want to make it more complicated but really it does just come down to what is legal and what is not.

So no a carer will not buy illegal drugs for a patient but yes they would buy alcohol or food or cigarettes as these are legal choices even if unwise ones.

They are in no way assisting in his suicide since, as you point out, he did not intend to die. Had he wanted to change his behaviour I'm sure they would have supported him to do that but they had no right to compel him.

The only times that an adult can have their right to decide taken away are if they have a mental illness as defined by the mental health act or are found mentally incapable of making decisions under the mental capacity act. This situation was not covered by either one.

People make unwise choices to drink, smoke, eat bad food, do risky activities, stay with abusive partners, have unsafe sex every single day. I bet you have made a few unwise choices in your time, I know I have. The state cannot and should not intervene in that.

I don't get your assisted suicide comparison either.

Suicide is not illegal. Assisting suicide is.

A capacitous, not mentally ill person can kill themselves without fear of state interference and can refuse life saving treatment. Kerrie Wooltorten did just that and was allowed to die (in fact I think there is plenty of evidence she was mentally ill and should have been stopped but the judge disagreed)

It's only where the person is asking others to be involved in helping them that it is illegal and so carers, Drs, nurses cannot legally support them to do so. In that respect it is just like the reason for not buying drugs it's an illegal act.

Should assisted suicide become legal I will exercise my right to conscientiously object to participating in it but I will not seek to stop anyone from making a legal choice.

I can't see any contradictions.
The state allows people to make unwise choices within what is legal
Disabled people have as much right to those choices as anyone else even if they need carer support to do so.
A lot more people drink and smoke themselves to death on a daily basis than eat themselves to death. It is very sad but it is their choice. Help is available to change but a person needs to engage with that help, accept it and follow through.

Still confusion over the role of carers. They do not provide 'treatment' of any kind, even if funded by NHS continuing care. Their role is purely to faciliate disabled/ ill/ infirm people to live their lives from day to day.

If medical treatment is needed, or any kind of intervention, that becomes something different.

I think one of the issues here is conflating different services and blaming the wrong one. The issue isn't about carers or peoples human rights. The issue is about whether or not this man needed medical treatment for his condition, and whether he was mentally ill and unaware of the consequences of his actions.

That's it. And it's so sad that people would even think about making disabled or ill people into second class citizens in order to enforce a schema for living that is arbitrarily decided, and would vary greatly according to who decides the 'right' way. And there's no way to avoid the consequences of doing this... If you have one rule for one subset of the population to follow, which isn't imposed on the rest of society, it's discrimination pure and simple. Even more so as its by definition those people exempt from following these rules that would get to impose it on the others. So you get people above the law who have enshrined in law that a particular group of people have less rights and can be forced to behave / submit to anything the 'above the law' people decide. Nice.

The HRA protects disabled people from cuts (eg it prevented a council leaving a didabled person lying on soaked bed pads all night, rather than having a carer come in to change her). Don't be fooled into thinking it's a nonsense piece of legislation. You may need it one day.

The HRA - the very concept of Human Rights - is to protect the individual (that's you, me ... "humans") from the power the state wields.

Everywhere I come across you I agree with you LurkingHusband...

Regrettably, there are a lot of people who believe the state should possess full power over human lives. This usually turns out to be because they think the state would hurt other people "for their own good" but shower blessings on them personally.

They are wrong, unless they have a close individual relationship with the leaders of the state.

The state's already inflicting mandatory "treatment" on benefit claimants, by the way.

As one claimant explained

“I've been claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance for about 8 weeks. I haven’t sworn or shouted at anyone. I have had 3 advisor interviews already; yesterday my adviser asked me to see their psychologist. I did not consent. I've been told that I shouldn't look into things too deeply...& that I am asking too many questions.”

This particular claimant was given a choice between seeing a psychologist or being put straight into a mandatory work placement.

Another claimant explains:

“My ‘advisor’ said I needed to see a psychologist because I was tearful and anxious after having my JSA cut for 4 weeks despite having a young child to look after by myself. When I said I did not trust anyone who finds it acceptable to starve others as a punishment, he told me that I was paranoid and again, needed to see a psychologist.”

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3113-british-medical-journal-condemns-forced-psychological-testing-and-training-of-claimants

The Mandatory Work Programme - where claimants are sent to work for companies, which are paid a bonus for getting free workers - is also considered treatment for the 'disease' of unemployment.