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?

But this again comes down to systemic issues and government funding, rather than simplistic personal choice. I work for the NHS and I agree that the food is often unhealthy, and most hospitals have vending machines full of junk food. In most supermarkets lots of the items on sale and advertised towards the front of the shop are junk foods. It really is cheaper to eat junk food than buy quality meat, fish, veg and fruit. This needs to change. In most deprived areas you can find supermarkets that stock mainly junk foods/ poor quality freezer foods. If people have grown up with that then they don’t know where to start when it comes to cooking and healthy eating. There is a lack of education about nutrition and cooking healthy meals on a budget. I believe this is a public health issue and needs addressing as such.

How many years did our government deny the link between tobacco and cancer ? Allow tobacco products to be advertised ?
Yes people have a choice, but government enabled and encouraged smoking too , therefore have some responsibility in supporting those affected

I hate threads like this. Judgemental people who generally are comfortably off, over simplify complex issues largely caused by poverty and stress.
It's easier to eat healthily and exercise if you are time rich and can buy high quality food. It's easier to sneer at other people for a perceived lack of discipline when you can avoid stepping into the shoes of someone who is stressed by a lack of money that they look for quick dopamine fixes. Or avoid thinking about people who lack sufficient sleep because of stress that affects their metabolism or look for simple calorific cheap and easy convenience food to fill themselves up (in more ways than one).
You might get your self medication by judging others rather than alcohol, food or cigarettes but a much more effective use of your time might be to do things that might make a difference.

Pot kettle black springs to mind here…

Oh Lovely, you sound like you do not understand how other people live in a profoundly unfair social system that affords you great privileges and advantages, at the price of assigning many more to desperate poverty, inadequate and insecure housing and exposure to violence. People often smoke to suppress appetite and settle their anxiety symptoms.

Of course there are much better answers if you have genuine choices. Lots of your fellow citizens don't have these choices. The fact you do is most likely to be due to inherited advantages, but perhaps you consider it to be due to your moral superiority? Rich people tend to assume this despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Concentrating the nation's wealth in the hands of a tiny proportion of the population, whilst large number of families go to bed hungry every night. or cannot afford to heat their homes, is profoundly injurious to the health of the nation.

Blimey I am surprised at that.
Did you not smell the stink of fags on them, or see them haul themselves out of bed in severe pain desperate to get to the smoking shelter despite being in their night clothes?

Where did I look down on people? I explained my lived experience. There’s no way I can look down on people due to my childhood where I was looked down on. If you’ve known deprivation you’ll know what I mean. You reacted in a bullying way. Nasty. I was lucky. I made the right choice. It was the kids with money who could smoke. I literally had nothing. My parents didn’t smoke - this is the only thing I can say they did right. The risks weren’t on packets but the effects were seen and known. Luckily I got myself out of my childhood situation. I’m actually happy to not smoke or drink for all the obvious reasons. Thank goodness I avoided all the cost and hassle.

So regarding your driving example..those who drive sensibly...at what point would you chuck them out of the hospital..presumably after a crash investigation where they realise that one driver was doing 35 in a 30..then what..just turf them out the hospital?
Rugby, football, horse riding? None of these covered either? Anyone who has cancer but the occasional alcoholic drink..who would say that the cancer was cause by the drink and not just an awful coincidence

You were lucky - yes. Your parents didn’t smoke so you did not have the opportunity. It is not about choice when people are living in poverty and often traumatised. It’s great you improved your life (genuinely) but it does come across like you think you are morally superior to those who made different ‘choices’ to you. People cope in different ways, and have different experiences despite having certain background similarities.

And do you not see how one “slip up” from any person in that situation. One bad day where they reached for a cigarette as a crutch, one day of trying to fit in at school etc could change that.

I have never smoked, but that doesn’t make me some way morally superior to those who have or still do. It just means my lived experience is different from there’s even if they lived next door to me.

It's hardly surprising on a respiratory ward.

My DM has cancer, a kind that may have come about as she smoked for 20 years (though stopped 30 years ago) but the biggest risk factor for any cancer by far is age. Would you not treat her as she used to smoke?

It’s an interesting point but it doesn’t usually cause lasting harm or need for lifelong medical attention for the mother.

I had a good go at smoking when I was younger but in a way I'm lucky that it never suited me. Probably I'm slightly asthmatic (I get things like cold-weather exercise induced asthma) and it just made me feel ill. It's certainly not because I am morally superior.

You're 100% correct. There is such a lack of education on how to cook I've found. I work in a deprived area and at work I'm shocked by amount of people who don't know how to cook basic meals from scratch and they seem trapped in a cycle of having to eat the shitty processed foods out there because they don't know how else to feed themselves.
I do think though that it can be cheaper to eat unprocessed stuff - you can make a stew in a slow cooker that can feed you for days with a few quids worth of ingredients. We live on a small island here and nobody seems to want to get behind the farmers but we need to. People need to be taught how to budget, how to cook. The people at work all smoke and I'm always shocked how expensive it is, I stopped many years ago (it was £2 for 20 when I still smoked!)
It's definitely an education issue and I think free to the public classes should be available.
It must surely be cheaper for the NHS to cook healthier meals from scratch and ditch the kitkats/mars bars/coke/crisps than to serve that shit to people who are very ill. I was in hospital for bowel related issues and couldn't eat the shit they were serving but I can't see it was doing anyone else good either.

Sounds easy until you're charged with separating the deserving sheep from the undeserving goats. A lot of hard cases, either way, in the grey zone

If you only treated people who lived perfect lives there would only be one hospital in the uk. Half of its beds would be NICU.

Most illness is lifestyle is it not?

And yes they are smoking but I’m assuming they are there temporarily for a secondary infection? Otherwise they are just in hospital full stop. And if that ill will die anyway.

So sorry OP I think yabu. Otherwise where do we draw the line. Everyone with high blood pressure, diabetes, majority of the country is overweight.

No, it benefits society to have a healthy, active population that are less likely to become overweight, with its associated health issues, or get ill and unhealthy from inactivity generally.

I was lucky to have the thought process to make the right choice. Fit in at school - yes I was bullied for not smoking. I was offered smokes to pay back later with smokes. It was tough. Why didn’t I cave in? I knew it wasn’t a good choice. I was also used to being bullied so no change there. I had no money for cigarettes. If you’ve had no cash to waste then you’ll understand. You too haven’t smoked. I’m against smoking (and drinking and drugs). I’m point has been put higher taxes on it to pay for the choice it is. Everyone should get medical care. Life is a risk but smoking is a risk that gets played down and, from reading here, it is thought to be something to be pitied and enabled. Tax needs to be higher on tobacco and vapes imho.

is It nice up there on the moral high ground?

Even accepting your own luck you still feel it’s ok to judge others who aren’t as lucky?

Wait until you find out how much asylum seekers & refugees cost the NHS....

The NHS has a lot of flaws, and people don't appreciate it - but it ultimately does more harm than good & I'm grateful we have it. I don't think singling people out as less worthy of treatment is the way to go. People know the choices they're making aren't healthy - the problem with addiction is it's often deep rooted within other issues which aren't an easy fix. I hope you received the treatment you needed OP & are recovering well.

How about you tell us how much Asylum Seekers etc cost?

I think the analogy is more anyone who gets into a car with a drunk driver. The risk you take getting into a car normally is minimal versus smoking. The risk you take getting into a car when you know the driver is drunk is much higher.

Apologies my post perhaps came across as me saying asylum seekers/refugees aren't worthy which is the opposite of what I meant. I actually meant the costs in the NHS are spread out amongst people from all walks of life, surgeons, asylum seekers, smokers, fitness gurus & they are all as worthy as eachother. We can't expect people to never need the health service.

I have spent time in respiratory, cardiac and gastro wards. I am a healthy bmi, non-smoker and never touched drugs and drink in moderation. You are making assumptions. Other patients could have made assumptions about you. The whole point of the nhs is that it is a service for all. Your suggestions about it being offered to certain people like insurance schemes are not what the nhs is. Can I suggest you move to America? I have also had treatment there. Cost a fortune in insurance! I’m incredibly grateful we have a national health service!