Is it time to give up drinking when...

[thom]

[QUOTE 2646216, member: 9609"]So if any of the emergency services had less work, you are suggesting that the government wouldn't implement cuts? Of course they would, everything needs to be run at breaking point. The fire-service is a good example of this, 40% less call outs due to improved fire safety, and already 3500 less fire fighters and ministers trying to sneak in lots of other reductions.[/quote]

If there were fewer alcohol related medical incidents which filtered through to making a case for cutting some NHS services as a result,
what would the problem be ?

The NHS aim is to make people healthier, not provide unessential jobs. The NHS worker who wants more ill people is not someone I would suggest anyone here would trust.

 

[ComedyPilot]

If there were fewer cases of drunks clogging A&E dept's countrywide almost 7 days a week, then perhaps then they could save time and money to treat deserving patients?

 

[ColinJ]

I think that might be because he's dead.

Er, I think that was the point of the post!

 

[swee'pea99]

I notice cd365 seems to have gone to ground. Not much fun in the stocks, eh? FWIW, I don't think it's time to give up drinking. Probably no bad thing to stop getting so pissed that you end up in A&E...but I'm guessing you've already come to that conclusion. But no, why give up drinking just because excessive drinking is a bad idea? That's just absolutist thinking, rarely conducive to a happy or balanced life, in my experience.

 

[ColinJ]

[QUOTE 2661449, member: 9609"]If no one was ever ill or injured, how many doctors nurses and hospitals do you think we would have?[/quote]
In that imaginary scenario, zero, because they would not be needed!

 

[thom]

[QUOTE 2661449, member: 9609"]If no one was ever ill or injured, how many doctors nurses and hospitals do you think we would have?[/quote]
Less - much less. Maternity care wold still be required and probably other functions but I don't think that would be a bad thing do you ?
Think of the improved quality of life for everyone - patients & tax-payers included... We could spend more money on late life care for one thing.
Wins all round.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I wish there were less pendants.

 

[Haitch]

Less teachers, fewer education.

 

[cd365]

I notice cd365 seems to have gone to ground. Not much fun in the stocks, eh? FWIW, I don't think it's time to give up drinking. Probably no bad thing to stop getting so ****ed that you end up in A&E...but I'm guessing you've already come to that conclusion. But no, why give up drinking just because excessive drinking is a bad idea? That's just absolutist thinking, rarely conducive to a happy or balanced life, in my experience.

I hadn't gone to ground, just hadn't got much else to say on the subject.
All the wife wants me to do is stop drinking to that extreme. I used to have an inbuilt mechanism to tell me when to slow down, a stomach complaint that is now sorted after suffering for 20 years and I had to go private to get it sorted. With it sorted I can just keep drinking until I drop, obviously! I just need to be more careful in the future and more grown-up!!!

Another unnecessary statistic to add to the people who are stretching A&E to breaking point. Working in the NHS myself, I would bring in a policy that if people have to be treated due to excessive Alcohol, they should have to pay for their treatment. I probably risk abuse for this post, but frankly, I don't care.

Where do you draw the line? What about people doing a dangerous sport? What about people who self-harm or try to commit suicide? These are self inflicted as well. I pay an awful lot of money in tax and N.I. contributions and I have done since I left school. I am very rarely sick so rarely use the doctor. I also have private health care for which I get no refund on my N.I. contribution. Maybe people who don't pay shouldn't be seen? How about we have a ticketing system, one for people who fund the NHS and one for people who don't. So if you pay in you get seen first, but in that queue if it is self inflicted you are seen last but before the non-payers?

 

[asterix]

... I pay an awful lot of money in tax and N.I. contributions and I have done since I left school. I am very rarely sick so rarely use the doctor. ..

It's a kind of balancing thing there. When you are young you tend to need doctors less (fewer? no, must be less) and more as you age. So to say your rarely need a doctor is good, but it should be borne in mind you are subsidising people who themselves once didn't use the doctor.

It's a social thing, rightly or wrongly and an issue for more contentious areas of the forum.

 

[cd365]

Binge drinking is 3 pints
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/understand-your-drinking/is-your-drinking-a-problem/binge-drinking

 

[BSRU]

Binge drinking is 3 pints
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/understand-your-drinking/is-your-drinking-a-problem/binge-drinking

That website basically implies you should binge drink at home. it's safer than doing it in public.

 

[Glow worm]

I can't imagine what an awful job it must be to work in A&E at weekends and do sympathise a lot with the arguement about charging the drunks for their treatment. I am on balance against that though as I still believe in free health care for all at point of treatment. We then also get into the whole charging smokers, druggies, saucepans stuck on heads etc debate as mentioned above (OK maybe not the saucepans).

Also, if we were to start charging the pished, what would happen if someone who is 'refreshed' but making their own way home perfectly happily, not bothering a soul, but gets battered by a nutter - would we still charge our good natured but well oiled pal?

On another related note, I wonder what the savings to the NHS would be if everyone who currently drives absurdly short journeys of say 2 miles or less had to walk or cycle instead?

 

[swee'pea99]

understand-your-drinking/is-your-drinking-a-problem/binge-drinking

Now there's a link I'm staying well away from...

 

[cd365]

I personally don't know anyone* who doesn't binge drink occasionally, if the 3 pints is the limit.

*I'm not including the non-drinkers I know