http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

Grossly overweight children may be taken from their families and put into care if Britain’s obesity epidemic continues to escalate, council chiefs said yesterday.

The Local Government Association argued that parents who allowed their children to eat too much could be as guilty of neglect as those who did not feed their children at all.

The association said that until now there had been only a few cases when social services had intervened in obesity cases. But it gave warning that local councils may have to take action much more often and, if necessary, put obese children on “at risk” registers or take them into care. It called for new guidelines to be drawn up to help authorities deal with the issue.

“Councils are increasingly having to consider taking action where parents are putting children’s health in real danger,” he said. “As the obesity epidemic grows, these tricky cases will keep on cropping up. Councils would step in to deal with an undernourished and neglected child, so should a case with a morbidly obese child be different? If parents consistently place their children at risk through bad diet and lack of exercise, is it right that a council should step in to keep the child’s health under review?”

“The nation’s expanding waistline threatens to have a devastating impact on our public services. It’s a huge issue for public health, but it also risks placing an unprecedented amount of pressure on council services.”

Deadly facts

— Councils are spending tens of thousands of pounds widening crematorium furnaces to deal with fatter corpses

— Standard coffins are between 16 and 20ins wide (40-50cm) but coffins twice that size are being ordered to fit larger bodies

— Lewisham Council has ordered a 44in cremator from America and is taking coffins from the Midlands. A furnace has just been installed at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, for coffins a metre wide and Blackburn is to buy a 42in cremator

— New ambulances have been introduced across Wales with special equipment for fat patients, including a winch and an extra wide strengthened stretcher

— Fire services are threatening to charge police or hospitals a fee if they are called in to move grossly overweight people out of dangerous buildings

— Many schools are having to adapt their furniture to cope with heavier, wider children. Each larger table and chair costs about £30

— It is estimated that nearly 2,000 people are too fat to work

Another problem associated with socialism. One person’s problem is socialized and then everyone believes they have a say in your life. Isn’t that counter to what universal health care was advertised as? Everyone has care regardless of status or condition? You’d now be free from the worry of obtaining care. The problem is when you remove the incentive to take care of yourself you’re more likely to be worse off. The cost of not caring for oneself is spread out over the populous.

Karen DeCoster over at LewRockwell.com/blog made a good point: “I thought that the Department of Health banned the use of the word “obese” when referencing children?” Perhaps the local authorities haven’t gotten the memo yet.

http://www.ctv.ca/…

Canadians continue to suffer from a doctor shortage, according to a new report that found 1 in 5 people have not been able to find a physician to treat them regularly.

A Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) released Wednesday found that more than four million Canadians are without a doctor, either because they have not found a family physician to take them on, or because they have not looked for one.

This proportion was up by 3 per cent since the 1996/1997 National Population Health Survey.

“The overall picture of the study is that we’re not doing as well as we need to do in the whole picture,” said Dr. Brian Day with the Canadian Medical Association. “A 26,000 doctor shortage falls short of the average of other developing countries.”

The survey also concluded that Canadians are not necessarily healthier than they were a couple of years ago. Then again, they’re not worse off either.

Since 2005, obesity rates among Canadians have not changed, according to the report. Nor have the number of Canadians who smoke.

This is despite drastic changes in those health categories in previous years.

The report was based on a comprehensive survey of 65,000 Canadians throughout 2007.

Seems that Canada’s universal healthcare isn’t so universal. To be fair the headline is misleading. Many of those who can’t find one haven’t really looked and just go to ERs when needed. Problem is with these things is that there are likely lots of people like me. I have health insurance but no doctor. I’ve not seen one in years. Pushing 10 if not more. There are likely lots of young people who don’t bother. That brings up another point though. If all these people aren’t using the service, either voluntarily or because of doctor scarcity, shouldn’t they not be paying for it?