Letter: Emphasis on smokers story is wrong way round
As a reformed long-term smoker who has given up smoking the weed, together with my other pleasure of partaking of a few pints of real ale a week as a direct result of the ban on smoking in pubs, I was interested to read that smokers are responsible for taking up one in 20 hospital beds.
Surely the propagandist headline should be that smokers (who contribute millions in additional taxes) only occupy five per cent of hospital beds.
Perhaps it’s the other 95 per cent of patients who should be pilloried for having the gall to require inpatient treatment from the underfunded and rapidly failing NHS.
Teddy Alexandra,
Shifnal
Comments for: "Letter: Emphasis on smokers story is wrong way round"
R Suppards
Anyone who smokes must have custard for brains. It's about time illnesses resulting from this loathsome habit were treated as self-inflicted and put right to the back of the treatment pile. Income from tobacco sales does not go directly to the NHS, it goes in the common pool, from which the taxes of the majority element of non-smokers is forced to cough up (pun intended) to treat the smokers who don't have the ability to say no to the next cigarette.
mined yours
i have never smoked if people wont to smoke so whot
Ken Adams
I am always interested in the argument that smokers should not be treated by the NHS, I supposed as the illness can be considered self-induced. Perhaps we could expand on that idea and refuse treatment for all other problems which could be considered self-induced. I can think of many areas where the NHS could save money by refusing to treat people who choose to expose themselves to illness or injury through sport, not to mention those who demand the NHS treat their life style choices.
Salop Cynic (not)
C'mon Ken, the list is endless! Speeding drivers who have accidents, holiday makers over exposure to the harmful sun, drinkers, old people, careless people, accident prone individuals, just to name a few. Indeed, if this little lot were all excluded from the hospitals we could close a few wards, sack some nurses and decrease the countries debt.
Ken Adams
Salop: My point exactly! But as we are not going to do that, why pick on one sector of the community.