He has only manage to cut back his habit to a couple of ciggies a day

All over the United Kingdom some doctors will not operate on people who carry on smoking. If for example you suffer from heart disease and you continue to smoke it not much point having any operation. Doctors say that they cannot help patients unless they are prepared to help themselves and it does make perfect sense that they say this.

There is also the issue of wasting valuable time and resources on people who will not recover fully unless they quit their habit when in the same period there are other people who are far more likely to make a full recovery who are on the hospital waiting list and who are not being operated on because of the vast numbers of smokers who need surgery every year.

It appears however that doctors are taking this no smoking rule one step further and have just said that they will not operate on one mans broken ankle because he is a smoker. This seems a bit draconian because it is unlikely that he broke his ankle as a result of smoking and his habit is unlikely to have much effect on his recovery.  Nevertheless the fact that he is being coerced to give up smoking can only do him good and will improve his quality of life greatly.

The man Mr. John Nuttall who is a builder has been told he has to quit his twenty a day cigarette habit before they will consider him for his surgery. He apparently is having great problems quitting and has only manage to cut back his habit to a couple of ciggies a day.

It is perfectly legal for doctors in the United Kingdom to say that they will not operate on smokers since the British Health Secretary made a ruling along these lines. The rules state that doctors can say that they will not operate unless a patient has quit smoking for at least four whole weeks.