Explanation/

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ronyork

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Apr 28, 2015
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Hunts
What is the explanation that one has to pay for care in the case of dementia/alzimers (an illness) but sufferers from drink, drugs and smoking related problems all self inflicted can get all treatment and care free under N.H.S. rules.
 

Katrine

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Jan 20, 2011
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Addiction treatment services are pitifully inadequate, and mostly unavailable in rural areas. The expensive private clinics are way out of reach financially for most families who need help for an addict. Please don't judge, or compare, or trivialise addiction.

I understand your appeal for equitable treatment. Any of us could select an area of NHS service and decide that it should not receive public funding. We might have moral objections, or social ones. I won't give examples because to do so would offend someone else for whom that service has been life-changing.
 

ronyork

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Apr 28, 2015
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Explanation

Morning Katrina. I take on board your comments. But what I tried to point out that thee problems re self inflickted. and are a great cost to the community (and the problem is growing) My question is why do these get help FREE CARE while sufferers of dementia/alzimers will paY/PAY/PAY.
 
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notsogooddtr

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Jul 2, 2011
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I doubt that anyone chooses addiction and find the term 'misfit'disrespectful.Many people without any experience of dementia use terms which we find disrespectful,let's not behave in the same way.Everybody who is ill should get free healthcare but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.
 

Beate

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May 21, 2014
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London
Addictions are illnesses too and for the most part, people can't help them and find it very hard to get rid of them. I am sorry, but that is as ill-informed as saying people with dementia brought it on themselves because they didn't do enough crosswords. And how would you class someone with Korsakoff's syndrome, which is alcohol-induced dementia?

The problem is that dementia falls under social care which is notoriously underfunded, which is why everyone has to fight so much for proper care support.
 

LYN T

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Aug 30, 2012
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Brixham Devon
I know a couple of people who have had addictions to alcohol; neither is a 'misfit'. One in particular has beat his demons and has had a family and is a teacher. There was some talk of his birth mother having had addictions. My Husband POSSIBLY inherited a gene as he was the third generation in his family to have early onset AD. Pete was an English Lecturer and was also not a 'misfit'! How can you distinguish between the two?; Pete couldn't help getting AD, our friend couldn't stop taking to the bottle to block out his past. Both are illnesses through no fault of their own-neither of them were 'self inflicted'.

They both fought their illnesses-one won, one lost, BUT I do know that our friend's adopted Mum had to fight tooth and nail to get the care he sorely needed-just as I had to fight for Pete. I've never, ever heard of someone with an addiction getting an easy ride as the provision for addiction care is woefully inadequate.

Thinking that addiction is 'self inflicted' is too simplistic; some people have terrible problems in their lives -they deserve our sympathy and compassion.
 

ronyork

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Apr 28, 2015
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Explanation

Any person who injects their person with drugs or swallows such muck, drinks themselves into a stupour,or fills their lungs with smoke otherwise abusing themselves. they should pay for any help they get.
 

Katrine

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Jan 20, 2011
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Morning Katrina. I take on board your comments. But what I tried to point out that thee problems re self inflickted. and are a great cost to the community (and the problem is growing) My question is why do these get help FREE CARE while sufferers of dementia/alzimers will paY/PAY/PAY.

I doubt if I can educate you further about the very complicated subject of addiction. My point was that there is very little FREE care and treatment, especially in rural areas. It is very easy for addictions to start, but once on the slippery slope....

Case 1: Retired senior nurse in her 80's. Lifelong nicotine addict. Spent many months in hospital with malnutrition and COPD. Died at home of heart failure as a result of her severe COPD. Cost to NHS: a great deal of money.

Case 2: Teenage girl. Anxiety over A levels, family issues and social acceptance. Took heroin at a party. 8 years of on-off addiction. Got clean, then started again when under stress. 5 times. No help from NHS apart from methadone. No treatment services within 30 miles. Cost to NHS: methadone prescriptions.

Case 3: Hospital consultant in their 60's. Depression and alcohol abuse. 5 years of private counselling, partly funded by employer. Cost to NHS: In theory, zero as a patient, but as an employer there was a cost in counselling fees.

The common factor for all of these people, personally known to me, was an underlying anxiety over ' being good enough'. So, Yes, the person does feel a 'misfit'. We ALL have those feelings. Unfortunately some people use drugs to make them feel better for a while, and then suffer the consequences of addiction.
As do their families.

I see from your later post that you are entirely clean living, and expect everyone else to be so too. Whatever their upbringing and life experiences? Plenty of ex-forces personnel have problems with substance abuse.
Did they inflict their emotional problems on themselves?
 
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Beate

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May 21, 2014
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London
And I suppose everyone who is obese brought it all on themselves as well? Everyone who religiously eats their five a day, never has too much salt, sugar or fast food, exercises regularly, trains their brain and sleeps enough, cast the first stone. And even then you could get a disease.
 

Katrine

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Jan 20, 2011
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England
As it happens, I have a theory that the ultra low-fat diets followed by my mum and MIL have contributed to their dementia by starving their brains of essential fats. Diets imposed on them by doctors, with the best of intentions. So could their dementia be 'self-inflicted'? Perhaps in the future we will discover that some innocuous household product is a major trigger for brain damage. Who knows?

The further we go down this path of blame, the more people's feelings get hurt. I respect your right to have your opinion Ron, I just happen to think you are barking up the wrong tree.

How would reducing treatment of addiction help people with dementia? :confused:
 

LYN T

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Aug 30, 2012
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Brixham Devon
How would reducing treatment of addiction help people with dementia? :confused:

It wouldn't in my opinion. I'm also:confused: By giving treatment to addicts at least it gives a positive to Society in general. Less stealing/shoplifting to fund their habits, and the addict being part of Society in general. With addiction under control an addict can work and pay their way. If my daughter or Grandson ever had those kinds of problems I would hate to think that they would be 'written off'. Anyway, what is the alternative for many of these people? An overdose? Infirmity? Death?

We are supposed to be a civilised society-that surely means helping people in need?

Yes, Dementia sufferers don't have the support they need but it's up to the public at large to keep lobbying their MP's to make them aware of the difficulties that sufferers and carers face. Not condemn another group of people with difficulties to a terrible life.

Lyn T
 

Slugsta

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Aug 25, 2015
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South coast of England
I think it is reasonable to ask why people with dementia, or their families, have to pay for the care they need, a situation which is almost unique in our country at the moment.

I do not think it is reasonable to point to people suffering from other conditions and vilify them, they have not made the rules.

If we start refusing treatment on the grounds that the problem is self-inflicted, where will we stop? The sportsman who sprained an ankle or tore a ligament? The climber who fell and sustained a spinal cord injury? The person who had a 'road traffic collision incident' (or whatever they are calling them this week)? The person who ate too much salt and developed high blood pressure? The person whose parents married without having genetic tests and gave birth to a child with an inherited condition? It's not a road I wish to go down.
 

ronyork

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Apr 28, 2015
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Hunts
Explanation

You ask what help would come to dementia /alzimers sufferers if money ws spent on people people with self inflickted problems Well perhaps the money could be spent the above sufferers if it was not spent people who cannot control their habits and in many cases cause trouble in communities.
 

fizzie

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Jul 20, 2011
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You ask what help would come to dementia /alzimers sufferers if money ws spent on people people with self inflickted problems Well perhaps the money could be spent the above sufferers if it was not spent people who cannot control their habits and in many cases cause trouble in communities.

This conversation is all a bit much really. I can't imagine how I would feel if I had a son daughter dad mum who was an alcoholic - I would want money spent to try to help them. I just don't think we can make decisions on treatment and non treatment but I do think we can fight as hard as we can for our loved ones and try to make sure that they get the best quality care possible
 

Katrine

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Jan 20, 2011
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England
You ask what help would come to dementia /alzimers sufferers if money ws spent on people people with self inflickted problems Well perhaps the money could be spent the above sufferers if it was not spent people who cannot control their habits and in many cases cause trouble in communities.

In Cloud Cuckoo Land maybe. If our society abandoned such vulnerable people to their fate, would it then be more likely to spend money on another group of vulnerable people? :rolleyes: You are continuing to give offence by your simplistic social care proposals. Shall we just agree to disagree?
 

Pickles53

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Feb 25, 2014
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Radcliffe on Trent
You ask what help would come to dementia /alzimers sufferers if money ws spent on people people with self inflickted problems Well perhaps the money could be spent the above sufferers if it was not spent people who cannot control their habits and in many cases cause trouble in communities.

Many addicts have pre-existing mental health problems - is that their fault too?
 
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