Firemen Rescuing Obese People Too Often

It used to be an extremely rare occurrence

Worrying news from Northern Ireland is that the fire service over there has been called out to assist in moving extremely obese individuals forty times over the last five years. The regularity of the call outs is on the increase with eleven cases last year. The information which was released under the Freedom of Information Act also noted that the cost of moving these obese individuals was more than £85,000.

It used to be an extremely rare occurrence when the Fire Service were asked to help in moving obese people but in recent years with the growing obesity problem all over the United Kingdom fire services have been kept busy.

As the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service spokesman explained, fire crews have no problem in helping obese people in distress or in danger, however the real problem is that they could end up becoming over stretched doing this sort of work which could lead to fires not being put out as quickly as they should be. If the Fire Services were slow to respond to a fire because they were busy moving an obese person there could be calls for the Fire Service to be restricted to fires and life threatening situations only.

The importance of dealing with obesity all over the United Kingdom is highlighted by the huge costs incurred not only by health services but also by these recently released figures. Obesity costs the United Kingdom billions of pounds annually in direct and indirect costs. The British government must understand that if they continue to ignore the problem and fail to invest large resources into solving it, it could become unmanageable and very destructive to the health of the country.

Gordon Brown and his cabinet must not be afraid to introduce tough legislation to curb obesity in the United Kingdom.