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I get fed up hearing about the extra financial burden placed on the NHS by an aging population.
Perhaps if we concentrated on drink related problems, particularly in our A & E departments we could save a great deal of money which could help older people - like about £3 billion a year.
Unfortunately we live in a society which is blinkered about the true cost of alcohol and is dictated to by an ever increasingly powerful Drinks Industry.
Isn't it about time to start telling our children the truth about this antisocial drug rather than continually lying to them?
(spare me the 'it's alright in moderation' mantra - I remember them saying that about smoking.)
Where do you start though and where do you end.... there are so many illnesses caused by what we do ourselves to our bodies...drink , drugs , food, smoking.... so many different things all self inflicted.. what annoys me is the cosmetic operations done on the NHS.. and there are many... this is something not required to keep people alive... no matter what they try to tell doctors aboot the psychological damage caused by small boobs or whatever...especially when so many old people are in wards that are understaffed, a well known fact.. that older peoples wards have far fewer nurses on than other wards.....I agree though that more should be done to encourage young people to value their health more.. maybe if they were taken tours of hospitals to see what drink, cigarette smoking and overeating causes it might make them think twice..
But Dizzy, there are also wards full of people who have gone loopy trying to read internet posts that never get to the end of a sentence
OP - where have you been hiding yourself? In my world, the media gives a considerable amount of attention to the costs of treating alcohol-related disease.
I did a quick google on the annual costs of smoking, binge drinking and obesity to the NHS.
This totally non scientific research threw up figures of £2.7 Billion, £2.7 Billion and £5.1 Billion.
We have the NHS and therefore if eligible do not have to pay for the majority of treatment offered by that organisation- there are costs for prescriptions.
I wonder how people would treat their own bodies if they lived with a system where those services had to be paid for by the individual, either directly or through health insurance.
This also raises the question as to whether in the future the NHS would continue to provide services free of charge in situations where the problem is self inflicted.
I wonder if that has crossed the minds of the powers that be in our healthcare system.
I get fed up hearing about the extra financial burden placed on the NHS by an aging population.
Perhaps if we concentrated on drink related problems, particularly in our A & E departments we could save a great deal of money which could help older people - like about £3 billion a year.
Unfortunately we live in a society which is blinkered about the true cost of alcohol and is dictated to by an ever increasingly powerful Drinks Industry.
Isn't it about time to start telling our children the truth about this antisocial drug rather than continually lying to them?
(spare me the 'it's alright in moderation' mantra - I remember them saying that about smoking.)
While convincing people to drink less is doubtless a noble goal, the idea that it would overall save the NHS money is contentious. Alcohol raises £14.6Bn/year in taxes for the treasury. Alcohol costs the NHS around £2.7Bn/year. (1) While there must be other branches of Governments spending money on alcohol related problems (e.g. police/social work), I haven't seen any figures which make the cost to the taxpayer of alcohol come anywhere close to the revenue raised by it.
OP - where have you been hiding yourself? In my world, the media gives a considerable amount of attention to the costs of treating alcohol-related disease.
Only up to a point. We have to remember that this particular drug, which has probably the biggest price tag of any other enjoys a more or less stigma free existence, thanks to intensive lobbying by the Drinks Industry. We choose not to use the word 'drug' when we refer to it - nor does the media.
How widely is it publicised that it causes cancers of various types including breast & bowel cancer, or that a bottle of spirits contains a lethal dose of alcohol? Certainly not on the bottle!
The Tobacco Industry has lost the battle which is why we see the product behind shutters in supermarkets. Take a look at the corresponding aisles of alcohol and ask yourself who's winning that one!!
Have you noticed that every soap on telly has a pub too.. we might not see a cigarette anymore, but booze seems to be the chosen relaxant of TV..Emmerdale has the Vic.. Corrie has the Rovers..River City the Ship... IM sure you soap addicts can add more...all this portrays drinking as very sociable and the thing to do..
Trust me on this one, I'm living proof this is not the case...
There may be many who can & do drink a bottle of spirits. However, as with drugs in general we build immunity from them the more we take over time. The result being that we need more to get the effect, and this is why it's the hardened drinker who remains upright whilst less addicted drinkers may be on the floor.
That person is invariably looked up to as 'being able to hold his drink' when in fact he's just demonstrating how far down the road of dependence he is. At the other end of the scale there's the first time drinker who we all know can be affected quite noticeably after 1 or 2 drinks. Give him that bottle of spirits and if he drinks the lot it will very likely kill him, unless he's saved by passing out beforehand.
This happens. Youngsters simply don't know, and that's our fault.
We give two pieces of advice to our kids:-
1. Drink in moderation.
2. Don't drink & drive.
Both of which advocate drinking, and it's about time we stopped telling them that drinking is a healthy part of growing up.
There may be many who can & do drink a bottle of spirits. However, as with drugs in general we build immunity from them the more we take over time. The result being that we need more to get the effect, and this is why it's the hardened drinker who remains upright whilst less addicted drinkers may be on the floor.
That person is invariably looked up to as 'being able to hold his drink' when in fact he's just demonstrating how far down the road of dependence he is. At the other end of the scale there's the first time drinker who we all know can be affected quite noticeably after 1 or 2 drinks. Give him that bottle of spirits and if he drinks the lot it will very likely kill him, unless he's saved by passing out beforehand.
This happens. Youngsters simply don't know, and that's our fault.
We give two pieces of advice to our kids:-
1. Drink in moderation.
2. Don't drink & drive.
Both of which advocate drinking, and it's about time we stopped telling them that drinking is a healthy part of growing up.
The point I was making is that your claim was that a bottle of spirits contains a lethal dose of alcohol, and that is not true. Yes it could be fatal, but so could eating 3 Mars bars if you're diabetic, or eating peanuts.
However you've digressed from your initial point, which is non-treatment of people with alcohol induced conditions and injuries (can't really forget about them), through the NHS. The issue is quite simple, once you consider an activity serious enough that you do not provide treatment due to inherent risk of damage, then where do you stop? Skydiving, skiing, horse riding, motor racing, motorcycles, rugby, football, golf, promiscuity even all have inherent risks of death, serious injury or illness (and the list isn't even close to exhaustive), clearly certain diets, and addictions are bad too, hell lets just put it out there, part of the reason the medical services are suffering is that they've been successful at increasing longevity, and enabling births that even 10 years ago would have died before childhood to survive with congenital defects that require continued treatments. So while alcohol is avoidable, so is most of what I've listed, and then there's the potential for making a judgment call on who receives treatment based on projected costs.
So if you consider alcohol related illness and injuries as not priority, why should it not also be argued that someone who's 85 with peripheral artery disease should be a priority? Or a newborn who is born with malfunctioning heart, liver or kidneys? Should we only treat those who through no fault of their own suffered some condition, disease or injury? Which leads to how is it decided what is or is not through no fault of their own?
Roy Castle died a number of years ago of lung cancer after being a non-smoker all his life, the opinion is that since he was an entertainer and working in bars, clubs, theaters where smoking used to be permitted he developed lung cancer because of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. It could be argued that given by the late 50's the risks of active smoking were enough to cause people to begin to alter behaviors, and that being in a room full of cigarette smoke is tantamount to actively smoking, then his condition was indeed self-inflicted.
Now with all that said, it basically comes down to the question of, what level of personal control are you willing to cede to the government (in the form of the National Health Service) so that treatment cannot be denied? Ultimately that is the abstraction of question you're asking. Clearly you consider alcohol as one item you'd be willing to concede, but what about anything on my list in paragraph 2? All are known to cause death on occasion (although the treatment cost is likely to be significantly less than serious injury), and serious injury on occasion, and just regular injury too, and the costs are most commonly borne by the NHS.
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