Smokers To Be Denied Surgery, ASH Notes - Will Slash Costs And Recovery Times And Surgical Complications, UK
06/21/07
Smokers will be denied surgery in order to slash health care costs and
reduce recovery time and surgical complications, reports Action on Smoking
and Health (ASH), a national antismoking organization which has long
championed making smokers
Smokers will be denied surgery in order to slash health care costs and
reduce recovery time and surgical complications, reports Action on Smoking
and Health (ASH), a national antismoking organization which has long
championed making smokers bear the consequences of their habit.
The new restrictions are set to begin this summer in the UK, initially
under the Leicester City Primary Care Trust, but the requirements are
expected to spread quickly throughout the country. Under the rules,
smokers are to be denied operations under the Health Service unless they
give up cigarettes for at least four weeks beforehand, and doctors will
require patients to take a blood test for nicotine residue to prove they
have not been smoking.
Medical research shows that smokers take far longer, on the average, to
recover from operations, and are far more likely to suffer serious medical
complications. This not only greatly increases the cost of providing
surgery to smokers, but also ties up beds and hospital facilities urgently
needed by other patients.
The Trust says that "if people give up smoking prior to planned operations
it will improve their recovery. It would reduce heart and lung
complications and wounds would heal faster." Thus it is a "perfectly
legitimate clinical decision."
Professor John Banzhaf, Executive Director of ASH, notes that some
physicians in the US have refused to perform operations on smokers, and
that potential recipients may be denied life-saving organ transplants if
they smoke, just like patients who abuse alcohol or use recreational
drugs.
"Smoking not only causes many very serious and very expensive diseases,
but also exacerbates many existing medical problems and complicates
recovery from virtually all operations. Thus a smoker who sufferers a
broken leg while skiing -- a condition obviously not caused by his
smoking -- is much more likely to suffer respiratory complications and/or
infections as a result of the surgery, and to take far longer to heal,"
says Banzhaf.
"Generally, since most health insurance companies charge smokers the same
rates and provide them with the same benefits, these added costs and
delays in providing services to others are absorbed by the great majority
of patients who are nonsmokers. This is manifestly unfair. One remedy is
to charge smokers more for their health insurance, a policy the federal
government recently recommended and approved. Another is to deny smokers
certain services, especially if their smoking is likely to impair their
outcome."
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)