Posted
9/17/2007 05:54:00 PM
by Douglas
The beauty of socialized medicine. Want treatment? Fine, but first do whatever the hell we
tell you to.A man with a broken ankle is facing a lifetime of pain because a Health Service hospital has refused to treat him unless he gives up smoking.
John Nuttall, 57, needs surgery to set the ankle which he broke in three places two years ago because it did not mend naturally with a plaster cast.
Doctors at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro have refused to operate because they say his heavy smoking would reduce the chance of healing, and there is a risk of complications which could lead to amputation.
Smoking might lead to complication of an ankle surgery? I doubt it. Deny the surgery because he voluntarily engages in an activity that endangers his health?
Much more likely. So what's next? Deny health care if people don't eat a vegetable serving every day or get eight hours of sleep every day? Why the hell not?