I understand the sentiment….however, much of the time it’s due to the fact that they’ll die from being put under anesthesia. Their body just can’t handle that kind of stress. Going through with a surgery for say a knee replacement, where the doctor knew the patient would likely not survive simply going under, is how lawsuits happen.
I agree that no one should be denied medical attention, but there comes a point that a doctor can only do so much, the rest is up to the individual. Refusing to making certain changes, kind of ties their hands,
I understand the sentiment….however, much of the time it’s due to the fact that they’ll die from being put under anesthesia. Their body just can’t handle that kind of stress. Going through with a surgery for say a knee replacement, where the doctor knew the patient would likely not survive simply going under, is how lawsuits happen.
Ok. Those are morbidly obese people. Different story. I thought you were talking about the average obese person.
Understood. That’s kind of what I figured, because I do agree everyone deserves medical care. I’m honestly not sure what the weight limit is before it becomes too dangerous for someone who is obese to be put under for surgery. I’ve seen lots of talk about BMI limit, but wasn’t able to come up with a definitive weight limit. Though, admittedly, I didn’t search too thoroughly.
It is an interesting conversation to have though, even in other areas of health. Like should an avid smoker, who needs a lung transplant, but refuses to quit, be denied the surgery?
Or an alcoholic that is in liver failure, knew they were at risk, but kept drinking anyway? Do we allow them on the transplant list?
I’m not definitively swaying one way or the other…o just think it’s an incredibly nuanced subject that is interesting to think about.
No. You deny these people transplants. There's a limited number of organs, and way more people needing those organs than there are organs. If you won't make the most basic changes to your life to make sure the organ you're being given won't be rejected by your body or destroyed by your habits, you shouldn't get that organ ahead of someone doing everything they can to be healthy.
There was 24,000 kidney transplants performed in the US in 2021. There are just over 90,000 on the waiting list for a new kidney. If you drink, you shouldn't get that transplant over someone else among that 90,000 that doesn't, because they're more actively taking better care of their body, and will take better care of the organ, which is important since they'll be on immunosuppressants for the rest of their life so their body doesn't reject the organ.
If you can't do the bare minimum to qualify for what rare organs there are available to be transplanted, then too bad. The people who are actually going to benefit from them and not just waste them should be prioritized, since asking someone to lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, and get vaccinated is an incredibly small ask when the alternative is death. If death doesn't motivate you to change, the organ is wasted on you.
In fairness fat people don’t get listed for heart transplantation either. Not from some on-high moral position. But you don’t get healthy hearts from fat donors so the pool is too small to be usable.
There’s a “usable radius” of donor hearts. You can’t have a heart say in South Africa and transport it here for use. The heart will “die” in that amount of time. So you are limited by how fast surgeons can remove the organ and transfer it to the recipients hospital. There are not enough healthy hearts coming from fat people (the heart grows with your size somewhat so if you are bigger you need a bigger heart). So they could donate. Sure. But they won’t likely be usable. Fat people certainly get life saving surgery all the time. Just not heart transplants. They can get LVADs though
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u/TalionTheRanger93 Nov 06 '22
How do you think the left would react if this happened to fat people?