To think we shouldn't be funding this on the NHS?

[AgileJadeDog]

I recently had my first stay in hospital due to a respiratory issue and I kid you not, every other person in the bay smoked+had a smoking related disease.

I have no idea if this is typical in other specialties/hospitals but it really hit me how much gets spent on completely self inflicted stuff. AIBU to think we shouldn't be funding stuff like this?

No you are definitely not b u.

YABU.

Would you also like the NHS to stop paying for treatment for people who have been in car accidents, or who have sustained injuries through sports or other leisure activities? What about obesity related illnesses? All self inflicted, so not deserving or help right?

Yes, like kids who skateboard and break their arm. Self inflicted.

Tax on cigarettes generate more money for NHS than smoke related disease cost. YABU

Where would it stop?

Obese people, People who have cosmetic surgery go wrong, accidents that could have been avoided, cancers related to work or other lifestyles?

Pregnancy is self inflicted, so should the NHS also stop providing antenatal care? Leave women to birth in their own homes alone?
YABU.

Many illnesses or accidents could be classed as self inflicted if you follow the root cause back to the very start. The NHS is for everyone, not just those you deem worthy of treatment,

I’m very curious as to how you knew this information @AgileJadeDog .

I was recently admitted onto a respiratory ward with blood clots in both lungs. I have no idea whether anyone on the ward was a smoker.

I think this is a difficult one. If you say smoking related illness is self inflicted, then you can say the same about drinking and liver problems, broken bones because of sports, pregnancy and childbirth related issues, the list is endless.
These are all things that happen because people make a choice about how to live their lives.

First of all - how do you stop / start with care? My 87 year old MIL has COPD, probably caused by years of smoking when she was younger. She has no savings. Would you have just sent her home from hospital when she got admitted a few weeks ago?

Also where do you draw the line? My son broke his arm playing on a hoverboard. Totally self inflicted. Should we have had to pay for that?

The NHS shouldn't fund childbirth that's definitely self inflicted

Aren’t smokers net contributes to the NHS? In any case, everything from being overweight to being bit by your badly trained dog could be considered self-inflicted. Wheee would the line be drawn? YABU.

Well we'd have to not treat/ let die early in pain all other 'self inflicted' illnesses too presumably? so all the obesity linked cancers, diabetes, liver, kidney digestive issues linked to alcohol and diet etc etc.

The human suffering would be barbaric.

Or we could find some other way to change human behaviour?

Smoking reduction has been hugely successful btw.

Exactly this.

If we’re ruling out treatment for things that are self inflicted then anyone who drinks, is overweight, drives a car, does any kind of exercise that leads to injury, walks around, essentially is on that list. There’d be very few people left to treat!

Let’s stop treating

all cancers caused by lifestyle choices
Injuries caused whilst pursuing hobbies
Anything weight related (either over or under)
Car accidents if anyone was speeding etc

We could leave them all to die in the streets

And let’s not fund IVF, or anything to do with fertility, that’s a choice not a necessity. Ditto any plastic surgery.. so no reconstructions, or minor procedures

YABVU and frankly ridiculous.

Explain please, the process you would use for deciding whether something is self inflicted.

If you're driving a car responsibly and crash or injure yourself playing tennis I think that should be covered. If it's an obesity related disease or something caused by extreme/obviously dangerous sports then I would be leaning towards the NHS not covering it.

I think my problem is that if my experience is typical it isn't a few people which are in hospital due to self inflicted stuff, it's the overwhelming majority.

Where do you draw the line?

don’t fund alcohol related illness? Don’t fund the person who had two glasses of wine then slipped and broke their ankle?

don’t fund road traffic accents? Extreme sports? Any sport? People know the risks after all

A country that let big corporations flog us dangerous substances in the name of profit- yep I’m happy to help these people.

The biggest lifestyle killer is our poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle. So no you cannot stop treating people for things that are self inflicted as where do you draw the line?

Also there are people who develop COPD who have never smoked as well as lung cancer, so nope.

Where does it stop then though? Many, many illnesses and conditions are either self-inflicted or genetic so are you saying that millions of people should be denied medical or therapeutic treatments?

Break a bone - it’s your fault for playing sport or not being careful enough?

Have a birth injury - it’s your fault for getting pregnant and not assessing the risks enough?

Have a genetic condition and you pass it to your DC - are they to be denied treatments because you chose to reproduce?

Haven’t always eaten a perfect diet therefore any new medical condition can be blamed on that and you are denied treatment?

This type of attitude is a slippery slope, and who gets to decide who deserves treatment and who should suffer the consequences? YABU. We pay taxes so that everyone deserves medical treatment, not just the holier-than-thou brigade.

Everyone else kept going outside to smoke and the diseases (lung cancer x2, lung infections related to COPD x3) were all smoking related. 2 people who could no longer walk got staff to wheel them out in a chair...

Well they need to make BETTER choices!!

I work for the NHS (backroom role) in a part of the country where I swear they're the reason British American Tobacco continues to operate in this country... I was speechless recently when I heard a consultant say the reason there was so much respiratory disease in the area was because of the area's industrial past.

So nothing to do with bad housing, pretty much the worst weather in England, and the fact most of the population has a cigarette stuck in their mouths most of the time then!

Edited to add I'm not sure if treatment should be withheld but there are some bloody tough decisions ahead for all of us including lifestyle choices and how much some of them cost the NHS.