Young ones and corona virus

I feel that each person is entitled to make personal choices, however said people(anti vaxxers ) then sign a legal document to say they won't require health treatment should they contract COVID-19.

The problem with this, is where does it stop? Should a smoker be lower down on the list of cancer treatments? We’ve known for several decades the dangers associated with it. Same for skin cancer, should a person who has enjoyed many foreign holidays, thus exposing themselves to sun damage, be told no, while the person who chose to avoid the sun gets treated?
My dil recently suffered pregnancy complications (thankfully fully resolved). She’s fit, active and a healthy weight. By coincidence, my niece had a very similar problem. She is considerably overweight, should she have been turned away, because there is an argument that her ‘choices’ hugely impacted her health.

Would you want to be sitting in A&E and have a doctor decide between you, and the person next to you based on their own moral code? To be told that unfortunately you wouldn’t be permitted a bed. They’ve compared you with another patient and, while you have enjoyed a croissant on a Sunday morning, they’ve followed a low fat, low sugar diet. They do more exercise than you, and so their ‘choices’ have made them more deserving of a bed? It may sound extreme, but I fear that what you’re suggesting would be the start of a slippery slope.

If you apply that to other health conditions, pretty much no one would receive treatment. Someone in my family had a heart attack, they didnt smoke, drink, werent obese, however they approached their job in such a way that it most likely contributed to their illness, will they be low down on the priority list?

So then smokers, drinkers, the overweight, those who eat too much sugar, etc, should also get lower priority? Maybe it's just as well the system doesn't work that way.

Calling people who don't agree with you bozos is not a way forward.

Our British wards have plenty of people in them who are older and double vaccinated. The blame is not as simple to allocate as you would like to make it.

From the British Medical Journal:

of 40 000 patients with covid-19 who were admitted to hospital between December 2020 and July 2021 a total of 33 496 (84%) had not been vaccinated. It found that 5198 (13%) of these patients had received their first vaccine and 1274 (3%) their second.

A young member of my family had a very bad bicycle accident and was paralysed for a while, he's still affected by it 2 years on. No other vehicles were involved.

As it was his decision to go on the bike in the first place, should they just have left him bleeding at the side of the road?

No we can't put them as lower priority.

There are so many reasons people end up in hospital that were caused by lifestyle choices that sorting out who should take priority would be almost impossible.

We can only hope that their distrust of modern medicine lifts when they experience how deadly some diseases are for themselves or when they watch someone else go through it and it changes their minds.

Turning people away due to their choices would be, to the medical community, actively and deliberately harming or killing them.

I understand how angry that makes people when hospitals are overwhelmed and it moves others down the list of priority for care but I don't think we can expect hospital staff to do things any differently

Sadly, but it seems especially in Australia there is a group of people that don't seem to think that Covid actually exists, despite what is happening around the world.
I very much doubt that anyone close to them has had the misfortune to have suffered from Covid and until it happens, they will continue to walk around in blissful ignorance, which is fine if it doesn't affect anyone else but be it Covid or any other vaccination, including Polio, TB, etc, by their blinkered "not having anything foreign in my body, my body has it's own immunity" they fail to miss the point that it is only because the majority of the population have been vaccinated that means there is a lower chance that they will catch most serious illnesses.
They make me really angry with their selfish attitude- perhaps they should set up their own community in the middle of woop woop and supply their own medical support while they are at it!

This has been happening in UK ever since the vaccine was first administered. Its not just the younger generation. There are lots of older people in this country who don't want it. However refusing treatment due to self inflicted illnesses is still not ethical even though some people feel it should be. Your talking fat people, amateur sports accidents, smoker's etc etc.

I think it boils down to acceptable and unacceptable risk. Eventually, the NHS will run out of money, so these type of choices will have to be made. No longer theoretical, but a reality.

Maggiemaybe

From the British Medical Journal:

^of 40 000 patients with covid-19 who were admitted to hospital between December 2020 and July 2021 a total of 33 496 (84%) had not been vaccinated. It found that 5198 (13%) of these patients had received their first vaccine and 1274 (3%) their second.^

My husband contracted it in Hospital in January 2020 he didn't have the offer of the vaccine before that. They should be taking these figures from later in the vaccine programme be assessed they have changed considerably now. These official figures are always so out of date

Agree that you can't prioritise treatment because of perceived bad choices and, as many have said, sometimes you need treatment whether or not you have led a healthy life. The whole point of our NHS is to provide treatment (I appreciate this is a post about Australia but the situation in the UK is relevant) and that is why I get so annoyed with the way the system appears to have been hijacked by Covid.

Doctors and nurses have to take an oath on registration to "first do no harm". I would take this to mean that if they have the skills to help someone in danger they should do so.

We perhaps should remember that generally the victims of war are treated equally no matter on whose side they fought! Allied doctors treated Nazi soldiers in the Second World War after all; they did not question their moral code. A patient is a patient full stop. Deviate from this and we head down a very slippery slope where the State decides to whom treatment is given and who is deemed unworthy. I’m sure none of us want to go down that path!

I’m sure the pharmacist that gave me my flu vaccine said that many young people seem to have a needle phobia. Not sure why that is given that most would have had vaccinations when young. All I can think is that we remember unpleasant experiences from our childhood (remember having gas at the dentists: I can still relive those experiences) and everything should be done to make vaccinations as pleasant an experience as possible. Personally I can’t understand needle phobia at all and tend to regard it as silliness but should try to be more understanding of it.

Totally agree with Amalegra!

MayBee70

I’m sure the pharmacist that gave me my flu vaccine said that many young people seem to have a needle phobia. Not sure why that is given that most would have had vaccinations when young. All I can think is that we remember unpleasant experiences from our childhood (remember having gas at the dentists: I can still relive those experiences) and everything should be done to make vaccinations as pleasant an experience as possible. Personally I can’t understand needle phobia at all and tend to regard it as silliness but should try to be more understanding of it.

I think that’s really interesting @MayBee70 . When my dil had her second dose of the Covid vaccine, she said she’d been chatting afterwards to the St John’s Ambulance volunteer who was overseeing the 15 minute wait. He told her that almost every day they had a couple of young (nearly always) men pass out following the vaccine, due to their needle phobia. A young lad then passed out a few days later in front of my son following his vaccine.

I’d agree with you, I’d be inclined think that someone claiming to be phobic of needles was being a little bit silly. But if they’re fainting it’s clearly real to them!

I keep thinking of Neil and Vyvyan

I can't agree with refusing treatment to anyone who needs it. But if someone chooses not to be vaccinated they should not use public transport, or go to places where there are lots of people such as bars, cinemas, etc. I am in favour of the vaccine passport.

But are your hospitals really unable to treat cancer patients and others with life-threatening conditions as quickly, due to the number of beds occuppied by corona-sufferers?

Our hospitals said from the start that all oncological depts. would be working to normal schedule, and that the same would apply to cardiological and maternity depts.

Staff would be pulled from surgical wards where operations that could wait without proving life-threatening would have to be delayed. The same has happened with my regular check-ups at the out-patients' eye dept.

Basically, any annoying ailment that can wait without risking the patient either not recovering or making a poorer recovery has had to wait to free staff for the pandemic wards.

I find it hard to believe that hospitals are denying cancer patients treatment in order to try and deal with anything else, but would like to hear whether this is the case in Australia, the UK or wherever you are.

Taylor2016 Do you also think that people who drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes/cigars shouldn't get treatment? How about people who are obese through eating a lot of junk food (not those who have a genuine medical reason for being overweight)?
Perhaps if the Global governments hadn't locked everyone down and made them wear face masks for the best part of two years, the younger people would have had the chance for their natural immunities to grower stronger. Old generations who have had several decades of catching and recovering from severe illness whether bacterial or viral will have fairly strong immune systems, even those with life threatening illnesses will have been made more vulnerable by taking drugs which suppess their immune system. Even anti-biotics wipe out your gut bacteria, good and bad. Then, of course, there are so many health professionals who are losing their jobs because they are not double jabbed. It's not the un-vaxxed that's overwhelming the hospitals its Govt cut-backs over the years that means there are not enough hospital staff or beds.

Maybee70 I am one of the people who can faint at the sight of a needle and it really isn't nice at all. I usually have a "wee" accident when it happens which makes it embarrassing and when I've went down I've actually hit my head badly too. I would rather though get the vaccine than take the chance of getting Covid so I went for my jabs and will go for my booster. No fainting occurred, but I always have a real worry that it might. It isn't being silly, some are scared of a spider, balloons, the list is endless, but when it will stop you from maybe getting seriously ill you have got to do it.

jaylucy

Sadly, but it seems especially in Australia there is a group of people that don't seem to think that Covid actually exists, despite what is happening around the world.
I very much doubt that anyone close to them has had the misfortune to have suffered from Covid and until it happens, they will continue to walk around in blissful ignorance, which is fine if it doesn't affect anyone else but be it Covid or any other vaccination, including Polio, TB, etc, by their blinkered "not having anything foreign in my body, my body has it's own immunity" they fail to miss the point that it is only because the majority of the population have been vaccinated that means there is a lower chance that they will catch most serious illnesses.
They make me really angry with their selfish attitude- perhaps they should set up their own community in the middle of woop woop and supply their own medical support while they are at it!

Many people in Australia, including those in woop woop^, have listened carefully to the medical professionals, including the Minister of Health for Queensland, who was very much against the Astra Zeneca vaccine as she informed younger people they may die from a blood clot if they have it.

The public have been given conflicting advice by those in charge and the rollout of the vaccination programme was very slow too.