Thanks to Christmas over-indulgence, I have put on about 5 pounds over the festive season. With a purge on high-fat foods and excess alcohol, that will hopefully disappear over the next few weeks. But it's just as well I do not live in North Staffordshire. Because the NHS there apparently demands that patients must have a body mass index below 30 to qualify for any routine operation.
As my normal BMI is about 28, I would just about make the grade . And, though no-one would describe me as skinny, size 14 is actually not too bad for someone who has just hit 50.
However, with the BMI benchmark imposed in North Staffs, I would be hovering on the brink and frankly most people I saw in the pub last night would be refused surgery. Which is ridiculous - and wrong.
Apparently, even more people who are overweight and smoke will be at risk of being denied treatment under new proposals being considered by the Government. Another classic case of New Labour targetting the wrong people.
Who smokes, drinks and eats rubbish food? The poorest in our society. Why? Because cheap food is high in fats and sugars and alcoholic oblivion is cheaper than it has ever been thanks to the supermarkets who make big profits out of cheap booze loss leaders.
Smoking, as that great leftie John Reid once observed, tends to be a "pleasure" enjoyed by the working-class.Indeed, my mum, a seriously unexcessive person, used to say her 10 fags a day was her "only pleasure." She died at 61 from lung cancer.
Under these guidelines, perhaps the chemotherapy which extended her life by 18 months would now be refused. I sincerely hope not.
I have noticed for some years that the nation is getting fatter. On a scale hitherto only seen in the US. That doesn't give the Government the right to play God and refuse NHS treatment to people who have paid their taxes and national insurance in the expectation that when they became ill they would get help. Why don't they start having a go at the fast food industry, and the employers who pay the low wages which mean people are simply too skint or too tired to seek out healthier ways of life. Even if they wanted to.
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