DRINKERS who injure themselves on boozing sessions should pay for their hospital treatment, a Labour MP said yesterday.
Commons health committee chief Keith Barron said it would make the 160,000 drinkers injured in 2007 think before "getting completely blotto". But the BMA said it would be a "bureaucratic nightmare".
DAILY MIRROR, Friday, February 15, 2008
Thoughts? If they start doing that for drinking, what about people who harm themselves? Or try to kill themselves. What about people who end up with medical issues due to drug use? Etc etc.
I don't think that would be the way to go. Yes we need to encourage people to think before getting drunk but it would be a bit of 'Bureautic nightmare'
I agree that drink-related incidents are a big problem for hospitals, especially at the weekend. But aside from the fact that this would never work in practice, it's fundamentally against what the NHS stands for - free medical treatment for ALL. People who needed care would be unwilling to go to A and E, even if they needed it.
Besides, where would they draw the line? What about people who have one glass of wine but then fall down the stairs? Would it be fair to make them pay? And then you start to look at other activities which have risks, and which can be seen to be 'self-inflicted'. How about driving? There's a risk there. Obesity - yup, that's a risk. Smoking? How about if you don't eat your '5 a day' of fruit and veg and develop colon cancer; is that then your own fault? This isn't the solution at all. We need a culture change; we need to change the whole attitude towards drinking, and that is going to take a very very long time.
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: 'This glass is half full'. And then there are those who say: 'This glass is half empty'.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: 'What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
well i see it as i pay tax and national insurance so if i get drunk and need to go A&E ive payed for the service if you get me.
i understand about drunks wasting time and that but if people need to see a doctor they need to see a doctor.
" my precious, precious child, I love you and I would never, never leave you during your times of trials and suffering. When you see only one set of footprints it was then that I carried you" you were carried out of are lifes into the next and when its my time to leave this life I know i will be carried into the next life with you.
I wish i had my world complete again.
'Can we protend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars, i could really use a wish right now' BoB
^^Agrees with the 2 above (don't know your names!!)
As said before, where will the line be drawn? What about sports players, they injure themsevles regularly . . and of course, what about us self harmers?! (Threadjack sorry)
What i sort of mean, is, if this did come into action, it could possibly have a snowball effect, and as said before, it's against what the nhs stands for.
It doesn't even work in theory, silly MP's..
And you might say its self-inflicted
But you see that's contradictive
Why on earth would anyone practice self destruction?
I think that's stupid, and the reasons why are obvious enough and take about thirty seconds of thought to uncover.
I imagine most of the government agrees with me. There are always going to be people with lunatic logic in parliament; generally they don't pose a threat to laws made with common sense (unfortunately, they occasionally do).
well, i have sown untidy furrows 'cross my soul,
but I am still a coward,
content to see my garden grow so sweet & full
of someone else's flowers.
I read a fascinating article on this a few weeks back after The Royal Marsden Hospital fire. Anyhow it was showing the cost and problems that binge drinking caused the NHS and how because each weekend A & E was full of people with drink related injuries in there money was being taken from other area's to fund it.
Having read that article I would be in favour of it BUT as the above people say where would it stop and how would it be enforced and so on. I also think that the NHS is on it's knee's and living in a country where I have to pay for treatment I guess I can see both sides of the fence.
If I can find said article I'll post it.
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
If you think about it A LOT of the cases in A&E are 'self-inflicted' anyway.... are they going to say that if you fall off a skateboard you have to pay? Or you hit your thumb with a hammer when doing DIY you have to pay? Do schizophrenics who refuse to take meds & have an 'episode' have to pay?
I chose to have an operation last year then had to go to A&E because of a complication- do I have to pay because I chose to have the op?
They treat prisoners without making them pay but they're questioning treating people who are drunk for free.
Absolutely they should pay for treatment themselves, they also should be made to wait if there condition isn't all that serious, so that people who don't drink themselves stupid can get the help they deserve quicker.
Might not hurt the drinkers to sit there in pain and reflect for a while on why they are being such idiots, having spent hours watching my mother wait for a bed / treatment in A&E on a friday night when her problems was a serious side effect of surgery and not a result of meeting a bottle the wrong way.
Less than a month ago I was in hospital after drinking too much.
I woke up with no idea how I'd got there, infact I didn't know where I was.
Tubes and wires and stuff everywhere.
Aparently I'd been found on the grass, freezing cold, barely breathing, so they'd called an amublanced.
When the crew revivied me slightly aparently I said something about Fluxotine.
Long story short I was kept in overnight because I was drunk and just incase I had taken anything.
Had they asked for the money the next morning?
Yes I would have paid.
I should never have let that happen to myself.
Absolutely they should pay for treatment themselves, they also should be made to wait if there condition isn't all that serious, so that people who don't drink themselves stupid can get the help they deserve quicker.
Might not hurt the drinkers to sit there in pain and reflect for a while on why they are being such idiots, having spent hours watching my mother wait for a bed / treatment in A&E on a friday night when her problems was a serious side effect of surgery and not a result of meeting a bottle the wrong way.
The idea will never get enough support. I'm sure someone was ranting on about the same idea with smokers a few years ago.
I'm pretty sure this would be a bad idea. If you start something like this off it never really ends. You start with drinkers, then smokers, then heroin addicts and other drugs, then you move onto people with eating disorders, then onto selfharm (cutting, burning etc), attempted suicides/succeeded suicides. It would just get stupider and stupider, the asthmatic who forgot to take their inhailer one morning and later had an attack, the diabetic that ate a cookie so on and so forth. Problem is with propositons like this, even though they are thought up for the best of reasons whether it be to reduce financial strain on the nhs or to try and disuade people from getting into those situations this is not the solution. The message it actually gives out is that if you have the cash you can f*ck yourself up as much as you want.Even the concept behinde it is flawed, by acknowledging this it's once again enforcing the idea that money is more important than health and that you don't deserve treatment if it's self inflicted. Slight problem here, which I thought more people on this site would understand, if people who get drunk and hurt themselves should have to pay then why shouldnt the person who cuts themselves and needs stiches? Or the person who starves themselves to the point of hospitalisation? The smoker who ends up with cancer? Along with all of the aforementioned.
The NHS is there to provide health care to the community and if acts like this were put in place it would eventually lead to a Private Health Care system, such as america, where you can only get decent treatment if you have the cash. You might argue that this won't happen, but it will, us humans metaphorically shoot ourselves in the foot all the time, we're fantastic at it.
Also, what about the people who drink and then get hurt by someone else?
but they do sit and wait, they are pushed down the list because they are not serious.
next they will want self harmers to pay.
im sorry but i pay tax and national insurence so as far as i care ive payed my way with the nhs and everything else so why should i pay more.
" my precious, precious child, I love you and I would never, never leave you during your times of trials and suffering. When you see only one set of footprints it was then that I carried you" you were carried out of are lifes into the next and when its my time to leave this life I know i will be carried into the next life with you.
I wish i had my world complete again.
'Can we protend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars, i could really use a wish right now' BoB
They should definitely not be made to pay, I don't think they should be made to wait longer either.
Drunk or not they're still people, and everyone is guilty of getting a bit tipsy. They still deserve the full service the NHS has to offer.
And chances are, they pay tax so they are funding the NHS and have already paid for it.
1. Most people pay there taxes, so have paid for the NHS.
2. They payed tax on their drink .
3. If they want to charge them - just raise the tax on drink, a bit easier and might discourage people from drinking as much. (of course this idea is discriminating against the poorer people in our society - which isn't right)
Don't dare to be different. Dare to be yourself.
If that dosen't make you different. Then something is wrong.
Substance abuse is a recognized psychiatric disorder, and I can't even begin to describe how sickening I find it for lawmakers to even suggest a law saying any mental illness is the patient's fault. It's effectively criminalizing a mental illness, since NHS services are payed for with taxes, and revoking those services is a form of government-imposed punishment.
Emily
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(> < ) This Is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination.
they also should be made to wait if there condition isn't all that serious, so that people who don't drink themselves stupid can get the help they deserve quicker.
Might not hurt the drinkers to sit there in pain and reflect for a while on why they are being such idiots
Withholding medical treatment falls pretty clearly under "cruel and unusual punishment." And passing judgement on who's more entitled to medical care is a serious violation of current medical ethics codes, and, in my opinion, rightly so. If past acts affect what medical treatment you're entitled to, that sets a precedent that could be readily extended to delay treatment for people who have done anything at all that might have contributed to their condition. When the patient's behavior or character becomes an issue in determining treatment priority, it's also a short jump to giving priority to people who are "more important" based on how much the contribute to society.
Of course people with urgent medical needs should get services faster than those with less urgent needs. That's just basic triage, which is standard at any medical facility. But triage should be decided only from the patient's medical needs, not their character or behavior.
Emily
(\__/)
(O.o )
(> < ) This Is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination.
thats not fair- how do you distinguish the people who are just binge drinking for fun from alcoholics or people whose drinks were spiked etc?
plus, they don't do it for smokers or anything like that.
healthcare should be free. end of.
i kinda agree with hospice. it's worth considering.
but it would be difficult to enforce and stuff, and where would someone draw the line?
i mean, people CHOOSE to go out and get smashed.
if an ambulance is called out becuase someone couldn't control the amount of alcohol consumed and ended up with whatever, while someone else was having a heart attack or something. i'd want to hit the runk person persoanlly becuase the person having the heart attack probably 'desearved' [i use it in the loosest sense] the ambulance more.
someone said if someone with a mental disorder had an 'episode' would they pay. well i don't think they would because its a mental disorder, they can't help having it. whereas someone can control the amount they drink.
but the ideas more hassle than its probably worth.
but yeah. NHS was put in place for a reason. if they make a group of drunken idiots start paying its exclusion. and it kinda goes against what society tries to prevent.
