Australian tax on cigarettes aud$269.05 per kilo.

Sounds like a lot of money those smokers are contributing to the Australian treasury.

Australian tax on cigarettes aud$269.05 per kilo.

Sounds like a lot of money those smokers are contributing to the Australian treasury.
Posted by Kipp,
The consequent medical bills are greater than their contributions - which end up in general revenue anyway - not in the health budget.

To the sale of cigarettes, Aussie smokers contribute aud$3,000,000,000. To the Australian treasury.

Working in a hospital, I always have my break with fellow medico colleagues. Nurses and doctors in the smokoe area. Its more social!

BTW I dont smoke, and I aint unhappy! But the more social patients and staff, are those that smoke.

Its so easy to put down people, why is it so hard to respect people?

Could the reason that drug addicts, & aids suffers, are not being considered here, as people who should not be treated, have anything to do with choise of self indulgence of the majority of the contributors here?

It would appear to me that both of these pastimes contribute much less to government coffers, & are a much greater drain, than the indulgences being denigrated.

Should I now duck?

Kassie
I’m well aware that many factors affect decisions to provide or withhold certain treatments, of which obesity and smoking are only two. If the only consideration is the welfare of the patient, there’s not a problem.

In the UK there has been extended debate about policies of some health providers that refuse some types of treatment to smokers or the obese. These are not based solely on clinical considerations of the best interest of the patient, they are ways of saving money.

It’s one thing to say an obese person is less likely to survive surgery and so it’s not worth the risk of replacing their hip; quite another to say their hip replacement will wear out faster, so hip replacements should go by priority to the thin - even though, on a strict accounting calculus, the benefit to the thin person will be more valuable.

Look at what other posters are saying. A large proportion think Mirko is wrong, not because he incorrectly assumes that decisions are made on the basis of perceived responsibility, but because they believe that’s how decisions SHOULD be made.

As an ethicist, Mirko has every right to address this issue if it’s a commonly held view that smokers etc do not deserve medical treatment.

Rhian,
I have no interest in whether most of the respondents happen to think Mirko is wrong because they feel that valuable health resources should be withheld from 'irresponsible' patients - that is their opinion, not mine and not the policy or consensus of health providers in Australia.

As I said, I think the writer is being totally disingenuous. He has constructed this 'morally deficiant medico' from which to hang his polemic. He strikes me more as a provocateur than an ethicist - not that there's anything wrong with being provocative. I just think he needs to get his facts straight or perhaps provide some evidence for his assertions.

And I did have a chuckle at his final paragraph; in an era where the sticky fingers of the law are intruding into every area of life, to accuse doctors of a lack of deference and an over-willingness 'to arrogate to themselves treatment decisions' shows Mirko Bargaric has either a very good sense of humour or absolutely no insight.