Recent editorial in the UK’s Telegraph pointed out that the National Health Service (NHS) discriminates against elderly folks … rationing their care by dealying or denying medical services.
According to the Telegraph, the elderly are displaced in the medical queue by overweight folks whose “conditions, though, are the direct result of bad habits, poor diet, and the wrong choices. These conditions range from obesity and diabetes to smoking-related diseases like emphesema.”
If a 20-stone, 30-something woman comes into hospital with a bad diabetic attack, does she deserve to be at the front of the queue or the back?
She has chosen to stuff her face with Mars bars and Coke, and is now suffering the consequences of her choice.
She cannot claim ignorance of the dangers of her diet: the Government has carpet-bombed us with health advice, from schools to GP practices.
Class no longer regulates access to healthy living: everyone who can watch the telly, let alone read the magazines, knows that a high-fat diet will make you look bad and feel worse.
So what?
The Telegraph’s view:
The septuagenarian who develops breast cancer has done nothing wrong – except grow old.
The NHS has to consider that there are deserving cases and undeserving ones.
Age should not be a barrier to optimum care; but bad habits should be.
As my personal odometer races forward, I gotta agree with the Telegraph.
