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At nineteen, Best was beautiful. He was. At 27, if we believe the recent bio-obituary, he was an alcoholic. Yet he has had a kidney and an enormous amount of positive praise, in spite of wife-battering and some pretty pathetic behaviour by so-called normal standards.
We also hear that an entire health authority is refusing to treat fat people for medical conditions. On Have I got News For You.., Dr Phil Hammond said that everyone should be treated because it is the 'human condition'. He intimated we are ALL subject to that.
So his message is that everyone is human and every human makes mistakes. That maybe it is the human being we are salvaging here...
Looking forward to your replies in view of the fact that I am turtle. A person many of you have wished, on-line, dead, even though I know if you saw me suffering in the street, you'd have picked me up and helped me.
O sometimes wonder how much do your genuine humanitarian impulses about real people play with your media-tired e-feelings on-line?
In the end - and the question this is REALLY about: how far do people deserve to be helped?
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if you are gonna stop treating people because they are fat or smoke or whatever, you may as well get rid of socialised healthcare and just let the insurance companies price out the undesirables.
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quote:Originally posted by imnotthatclever: Looking forward to your replies in view of the fact that I am turtle. A person many of you have wished, on-line, dead, even though I know if you saw me suffering in the street, you'd have picked me up and helped me.
When suffering in the street, do you generally tell people who come to your aid that you're turtle? I mean, if it were me and you told me your dreadful secret, I'd probably kick you in the shins and walk away.
So I guess some people don't deserve to be helped.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: if you are gonna stop treating people because they are fat or smoke or whatever, you may as well get rid of socialised healthcare and just let the insurance companies price out the undesirables.
Yeah, I agree with this. I mean - alcoholism is a sickness. If the health service isn't going to treat sick people, then what's the point. And where do you draw the line at people who are putting themselves in that position - you know, would you stop treating people injured in ski-ing accidents on the grounds that they put themselves in a dangerous situation? Or motorcyclists? Or people who caught skin cancer because they didn't use enough suncream?
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Also, the health authority was proposing to stop certain treatments for obese people: Hip operations and replacement knees and such, mainly because the failure rate in such operations on larger people was so high.
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Well, there's generally a reason why the originals wore out.
Meh. I get all cognitively dissonant about this. The rabid right-winger that usually cheerleads my id is being shushed by the forces of woolly reason.
I'd love to be able to refuse treatment for all those idiots who've brought it on themselves - the drunks, the motorcyclists, the drunken motorcyclists, the spherically arthritic pie-rolling their way into clinic with tales of woe and achiness, the smoking vascular patients - THE FUCKING SMOKING VASCULAR PATIENTS; you've never met mulishly stubborn until you've seen a 60-year-old triple-amputee reduce a nurse to tears for refusing to wheel him outside for a fag.
But
then - I think of the skiers, the cricketers, the rugby players and the horsy lot - Fiennes even! - who all take up loads of time, energy and resources, and I don't really mind them. They brought it on themselves but with the best intentions?
Anyway. A lot/most(?) things we end up in hospital for are to some extent our "fault". It's a worrying road to start down, and all smokers, drinkers, eaters and athletes should be concerned.
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quote:Originally posted by Carter: Well, there's generally a reason why the originals wore out.
Meh. I get all cognitively dissonant about this. The rabid right-winger that usually cheerleads my id is being shushed by the forces of woolly reason.
I'd love to be able to refuse treatment for all those idiots who've brought it on themselves - the drunks, the motorcyclists, the drunken motorcyclists, the spherically arthritic pie-rolling their way into clinic with tales of woe and achiness, the smoking vascular patients - THE FUCKING SMOKING VASCULAR PATIENTS; you've never met mulishly stubborn until you've seen a 60-year-old triple-amputee reduce a nurse to tears for refusing to wheel him outside for a fag.
But
then - I think of the skiers, the cricketers, the rugby players and the horsy lot - Fiennes even! - who all take up loads of time, energy and resources, and I don't really mind them. They brought it on themselves but with the best intentions?
Anyway. A lot/most(?) things we end up in hospital for are to some extent our "fault". It's a worrying road to start down, and all smokers, drinkers, eaters and athletes should be concerned.
The thing about the job you have chosen for yourself is that I can't begin to imagine the strain of dealing with the issues you do. My GP, whom I have come to love over the last twenty years, recently retired early through stress-induced ill-health. She was always the one who was left, an hour after her colleagues had gone home, still taking time with us all. It strikes me as the sort of job where you always question when you should put the barriers up; where you should draw the line.
I'm sorry I was so nasty to you, ages ago.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: if you are gonna stop treating people because they are fat or smoke or whatever, you may as well get rid of socialised healthcare and just let the insurance companies price out the undesirables.
Absolutely.
This is a particular issue in view of the fact that, for example, people are afraid of having an NH AIDS test through their GP (in fact some GPs warn them not to ask) because if they do - even if it is negative - they will find it almost impossible to do the ordinary things such as getting a morgage.
Once such things are 'on record' the insurance company takes it as 'high risk' and suddenly life gets very difficult.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: if you are gonna stop treating people because they are fat or smoke or whatever, you may as well get rid of socialised healthcare and just let the insurance companies price out the undesirables.
Yeah, I agree with this. I mean - alcoholism is a sickness. If the health service isn't going to treat sick people, then what's the point. And where do you draw the line at people who are putting themselves in that position - you know, would you stop treating people injured in ski-ing accidents on the grounds that they put themselves in a dangerous situation? Or motorcyclists? Or people who caught skin cancer because they didn't use enough suncream?
So does that mean you would draw the line at having me (as I am/was as turtle) shot/pushed over a cliff/left in the street...whatever?
Would you have given Best a new kidney?
Even I find that a hard one to answer.
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quote:Originally posted by imnotthatclever: So does that mean you would draw the line at having me (as I am/was as turtle) shot/pushed over a cliff/left in the street...whatever?
Yeah - I never had a problem with you. I don't think I've ever even been particularly mean to you. I was on holiday when you disgraced yourself so I missed the whole thing. Besides, I like it when people come on here and fuck everyone off.
quote: Would you have given Best a new kidney?
Even I find that a hard one to answer.
I wouldn't give anyone a new kidney. I'm selfish like that. I think Boy Racer gave someone a kidney once - you should ask him. I'll never be that altruistic.
What's the current criteria for allocating who gets what in terms of new organs? Did anyone read that story about the French woman who got her face replaced after being savaged by a dog?. They cut it off a coma victim or something. Let's hope they don't wake up, kidnap a doctor, have them graft her old face onto theirs and then take over her life before getting shot in the gut with a harpoon.
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I think I would give a kidney to either of my sisters but I'd have to hope that they both don't fuck their kidneys in some strange accident and I'd be forced to choose between them. That would suck. I don't know who else I'd give a kidney too... what about selling kidneys? I think I would totally sell a kidney for, I don't know, what's the going price for kidneys on ebay at the moment? It would have to be a sum that would be a life changing amount of money. A hundred grand or something. This reminds me of the time we were trying to work out what we would - or indeed wouldn't - do for a million pounds. Does anyone else remember that thread? I think it involved stuff like eating shit and fucking a dog. Didn't you say there wasn't much you wouldn't do for a million, Thorn?
quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: I think I would give a kidney to either of my sisters but I'd have to hope that they both don't fuck their kidneys in some strange accident and I'd be forced to choose between them.
The good news is, as you have two kidneys you don't have to choose!
quote:Originally posted by imnotthatclever: The thing about the job you have chosen for yourself is that I can't begin to imagine the strain of dealing with the issues you do.
But Carter isn't a kindly family GP: he's a Government Surgeon employed in remaking Thought Criminals by replacing limbs with mechanical tentacles covered with wobbly David Blunkett eyes.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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quote:Originally posted by imnotthatclever: This is a particular issue in view of the fact that, for example, people are afraid of having an NH AIDS test through their GP (in fact some GPs warn them not to ask) because if they do - even if it is negative - they will find it almost impossible to do the ordinary things such as getting a morgage.
Once such things are 'on record' the insurance company takes it as 'high risk' and suddenly life gets very difficult.
WRONG!
The ABI/BMA agreed General Practitioner Report form (GPR) published in September 2003 and the Guidance on Medical Information and Insurance published in December 2002 advises GPs that they should inform insurers if the applicant is HIV positive or is awaiting an HIV test result or if the patient has had one or more episodes of a sexually transmitted disease that has long term health implications.
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