Health - Punished for being poor
WORKERS, JAN 2006 ISSUE
In November, Primary Care Trusts in Suffolk ruled that obese people would not get operations like hip and knee replacements.
Dr Brian Keeble, from Ipswich PCT, said, "Patients who are overweight and obese do worse after operations. Lighter people tend to do better in terms of hip replacements not working. But we cannot pretend this work wasn't stimulated by the pressing financial problems of the NHS in East Suffolk."
"Doing worse after operations" could be used to deny operations to all but the very slimmest and fittest of patients, and signals a move to an NHS geared to treating only the least poorly. Lack of mobility will further exacerbate the health problems of the obese, who will be unable to exercise to lose weight.
The government's treatment watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), has now recommended that the NHS refuse treatment to certain patients, particularly those who smoke or drink or are overweight. NICE says that the NHS should avoid denying care to patients with conditions that are, or may be, "self-inflicted". But then it says that if such causes influence the clinical or cost effectiveness of the use of an intervention, it may be appropriate to take this into account.
Fat people, thin people, tall and short are entitled to the same level of health care from the NHS. To rule otherwise would be a slippery slope towards selective rather than universal health care.