Question

Question: Some people believe that anyone who knowingly engages in high-risk behaviors is asking for trouble and should be denied treatment if they subsequently become infected. Agree or disagree? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

A majority of doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS's growing use of "lifestyle rationing".Some medics believe unhealthy behaviour can make procedures less likely to work, and that the service is not obliged to devote scarce resources to them.

Smokers and obese people are already being denied operations such as IVF, breast reconstructions and a new hip or knee in some parts of England.

There's no way that someone who is obese can be denied initial treatment by the NHS – that would be totally unjustified. There are many reasons why people are fat and gluttony is only one of them. The NHS should not be discriminating against fat people purely on the grounds of their fatness. That would be a denial of their basic human rights."

there can be clinical reasons to ask someone to take action such as losing weight or stop smoking before surgery because the risk of surgery can become greater.