have you got a solution to control illnesses due to lifestyle choices?
would you condone euthanasia?
Nobody has answers that are universally acceptable, certainly not me. We stumble along with such as NICE who decide what drugs we can afford while Health Trusts decide what they can spend on capital equipment and buildings.
The one thing we do know is that we can't afford everything and never will be able to, so some will suffer and some will lose lives that could have been saved if that were not true.
It was so easy when I was admitted to hospital long, long ago as a six year old with a hugely swollen left arm from septicaemia. There were no antibiotics then, no sophisticated adjustment of blood chemistry. All they could do was strap my arm vertically up to a frame over a bed for two weeks and leave me for one of two things to happen. Either the toxin to be beaten by my immune system or it kill me.
A health service like that was dirt cheap to build and run. The wards were long huts each with some 40 beds, no special wards, everyone else in my ward adult men. Treatment consisted largely of hot poultices for open wounds or rest and nursing for many internal conditions. Operations were relatively simple then, very unlike the highly technical sophisticated procedures now increasingly common and costing tens of thousands of pounds apiece using equipment that costs millions.
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