Fire Service - Obesse People

[jd_1984]

http://www.mirror.co....-obese-people-1432936

Does this qualify as the fire service's "duty of care" to the public??

[youngmafbog]

Should have left him in the Batch with a pipe of water. Eventually the lard would have gone and he could get out himself.

Just out if interest I wonder who gives him the food?

[jno]

it doesn't really seem like what a "fire service" was invented for, does it? How did it come to be on their manor? I can see how they get called to rescue cats from trees, because they have ladders, but what have baths got to do with them?

[Mick-Talbot]

Did you make the word obese fatter deliberately?

Pickfords should remove fat people not the fire brigade.

[Mick-Talbot]

10 a week ..... crikey

[friedgreentomato]

Do obese people lose their right to help and human rights when they become fat then? Or do they just become something to be scraped of your shoe not being allowed to have seeking because the are fat!!

[Mamyalynne]

It is part of their duty of care - yes.

[jno]

why is that, mamya?

[sp1814]

If thes people have paid taxes then why shouldn't they benefit from services which are funded by the tax payer?

Should smokers be banned from hospital treatment? Drinkers?

Should we ring fence all services so that only the healthiest of us are eligable for care by the emergency services?

[sp1814]

Incidentally, in my heart of hearts...obese people kinda tick me off.

[jd_1984]

sp I agree with you in theory. However is it the role of the fire service is what I am getting at. If not then who?
Do we know they pay taxes and do not claim disability? Or am I being too blunt and inconsiderate?

[Mamyalynne]

jno, why is that??

They are part of the emergency services to help when people are in trouble and only they have the wherewithal and or equipment to assist. Whether it is a man stuck in a litter bin after a night on the pop or a child stuck in a gate or someone wedged in a bath

The alternative is...what?? Leave them to die??.

[McMouse]

When I read the title I thought the post was going to state that it is often a fat bloke who drives the fire engine.

[jd_1984]

McMouse, true lol!

[Mamyalynne]

"Do we know they pay taxes and do not claim disability? Or am I being too blunt and inconsiderate?"

Not quite sure where you are going with that statement jd.

Are you proposing we should instigate a new emergency service to cover other eventualities, that would incur many millions to set up, though as jno has pointed out - the fore service can continue to save cats.

[Mamyalynne]

^^Fire service

[sp1814]

It boils down to the fire service being the best equipped (literally) to help these people.

There's a programme on tv at the moment called '999 What's Your Emergency' (if you can catch it, I seriously recommend it), that follows the emergency services.

There was a poor woman who had been (please don't be like me and laugh) stuck on the loo for three days. The only way she could be lifted into bed was by three burly firemen.

I know it doesn't seem like this is what they should be doing, but then again, it's the fire service who free kids who have got their heads stuck in railings or stuck up a tree.

[mazie]

If people need help they need help. Should matter what size they are or if they have chosen to go up a bloody great mountains when its foggy!

[jake-the-peg]

I think we're talking about the "super-obese" here.

This isn't a set of people who hit the biccies a bit hard these are people with a BMI of over 50

If you're 5'10" you'd weigh over 25 stone to qualify.

Some of these people have appetite disorders meaning that they always feel ravenously hungry no matter how much they've eaten, others have pschological disorders.

When you think about it many of these people will have collapses and the ambulance will end up having to call the fire brigade because they're not fit to handle it.

There is a really unpleasant subtext in a lot of the coverage of such stories. If people suffereing from cerebal pallsy were still reported in this way there'd be an outcry

I wonder if YMB still calls people like them "spastics" or whether it's just the obese who are fair game

[pastafreak]

I sometimes think some people are missing the empathy gene-if there is one.
Why do the morbidly obese have to be the target of unkind words all the time?

[woofgang]

I used to work with bariatric people in the NHS. I never met one who didn't have some kind of psychological issue, often abuse related. Any of them would have given their souls not to be as they were.
I do get that as a nation, more of us are getting bigger. I suspect that this is multifactorial and that one factor for some people might be psychological in the broadest sense.

and yes if the fire service are the people who can help I see no problem in calling them out to help. I hope you never need their services for a non fire related emergency and I hope that if you do, someone holds you up for public scorn and contumely.