Mark Drakeford on NHS pressure from too much smoking and drinking

[Northerner]

The NHS is being put under too much pressure dealing with self-inflicted conditions, the health minister has warned.

Mark Drakeford says it is having to "rescue" people from "harm that need never have happened" through too much smoking, drinking and a poor diet.

He told BBC Healthcheck Wales he would do all he could to "bear down" on smoking.

He also wants a UK government crackdown on sugar in processed food.

Mr Drakeford was speaking in an interview for BBC Wales, as part of a week looking at the NHS in Wales, and which also publishes a poll from ICM Research.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-30951809

 

[trophywench]

Aha Mr Drakeford. So what happens when I give up smoking and put on weight? (cos I do whenever I have) Were I not me, of course, being overweight might encourage me to become diabetic esp with a familial trend (me T1, big sis T2) or perhaps I'd just become insulin resistant. So you wouldn't want to treat me for that?

Of course I am having trouble - I've hardly got enough ruddy skin to find a site that absorbs insulin properly - that's no doubt because I'm an addict and keep sticking needles in myself, so where does that leave me - with self-inflicted injury ........ ?

 

[MacG3]

The problems with statistics are that they are manipulated, for example, statistically speaking six out of seven dwarfs are not Happy

If every pressure group was to be believed then cutting out everything that is bad would mean that everyone lived forever, no one would be ill, and the NHS would actually pay patients for the privilege of treating them.

Recent research, which divided people into three groups, the thin and healthy, morbidly obese, and smokers found that healthcare costs from the age of twenty to death were the highest in thin and healthy people at £278,000. Smokers were actually the cheapest at £217,000.

Given that the smokers are highly taxed, they stand a chance at funding their own treatment even before you take the pension savings and the costs saved by them not spending the last years of their lives sat in a care home smelling of urine, thinking they are napoleons and that they invented the banana.

 

[HOBIE]

Can you imagine getting your legs Amputated ? Never mind Heart & lung probs. I met a nice bloke who had had that done trough Smoking. I know we are allowed to do what we want but have a look out there.

 

[Copepod]

MacG3. You realise that many people with mental problems in old age have to pay much of their own care costs, as NHS only pays for nursing care in nursing homes, so they have to pay "hotel" costs. I'm simplifying, if course, as rules are different in the four home countries. Eg in Scotland, free care, but there are restrictions on qualifying for free care.