Letter: Care for smokers: doctors' priorities, patients' choices

Sir: As someone who used to be a 60-a-day man - I stopped, cold turkey, more than 11 years ago - I must support the policy of the Manchester hospital that refuses to treat heavy smokers except in emergency.

Smoking, like suicide, is an act of personal choice. It is now confined to a minority of the population. Why should the majority be forced to subsidise medical treatment for those who have brought illness upon themselves? After all, those who choose to smoke must by now know the dangers.

Illness arising from smoking is preventable. All the individual has to do is stop smoking. I have no patience with those who say they cannot; if, on three packets a day, I could, then so can anyone.

A doctor once said to me that stopping smoking was less a matter of will-power than won't power. He was absolutely right. And so is the Manchester hospital. Our overstretched health service has far better things on which to spend its money than dealing with people whose ailments are self-inflicted and avoidable.

Yours faithfully,

NORMAN CHURCHER

Bexhill,

East Sussex

17 August