OBESE PEOPLE EAT NURSES !!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: mensnewsdaily

Friday, September 11, 2009
By Amy Alkon


Barbara Hahler, in an article for MedSurg Nursing, writes about the risks to health care workers from very fat people:

The sheer physical weight and size of patients places staff at risk for injury and stress-related disorders. Eighty-nine percent of back injury claims filed by hospitals are related to patient handling. Further, back injuries eligible for workers' compensation cost more than nonwork-related back injuries (Gallagher, Greenstein, & Parson, 1998). Once injuries occur, direct costs include temporary or permanent disability, and medical costs. Indirect costs include loss of productivity and the high cost of orienting new employees (Jacknow, McCunney, & Jofe, 1988). Unfortunately, there are inadequate data identifying the percentage of health care worker back and other injuries attributable to patient obesity. Health care providers often complain about the difficulties when they encounter turning, transferring, or lifting bariatric patients. Understandably, staff are fearful of physical injury. Of concern is that inappropriate equipment or inadequate staffing may contribute to the staff's reluctance to care for morbidly obese patients.
She lays out numerous other ways people who've grown obese are challenging in ways people of normal weight aren't. Reuters says caring for obese people sucked up 35 percent of total health care spending in 2006.

Maybe, at least financially, they should be asked to, uh, pull their weight in health care costs (including paying extra for Hulk Hogan types to come lift them out of bed). Smokers, too, should pay more. (Except, perhaps for those rare people who are fat or smoke because of some hormonal issue. That is why people smoke, right?)

A big part of the health care crisis is people who want something for nothing or who want other people to pay their way. How about you live just the way you want, but you pick up the damn tab?