SMOKERS who refuse to give up the habit should be denied some types of surgery, a respiratory expert said today.
Matthew Peters said denying smokers joint replacement surgery, breast reconstructions and some other types of elective surgery was justified because the operations were more risky and costly when performed on smokers.
"In healthcare systems with finite resources, preferring non-smokers over smokers for a limited number of procedures will deliver greater clinical benefit to individuals and the community," Associate Professor Peters said in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal.
"To fail to implement such a clinical judgment would be to sacrifice sensible clinical judgment for the sake of a non-discriminatory principle."
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I've said this for some times about Canada's healthcare. If you want to destroy your boy by smoking, you shouldn't get the healthcare that'll fix you and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars..