This is going to make me unpopular. That’s a cross I can bear for speaking my mind.
One person – just one person – has been costing this country over £100,000/year, every year, for a spell of greater than 10 years.
Is this person a Member of Parliament claiming a full set of expenses and allowances?
No, actually this person is unemployed, yet has so far cost the British Taxpayer over £1,000,00.00p, on what is a continuing spend.
Is this person Royalty?
No, despite costing this country the annual equivalent of a minor Royal, this person is one of the proletariat.
Does this person have major physical or mental disabilities that require intensive, round-the-clock care and support?
No, this person has no physical or mental disabilities. He does, however, require substantial care and support.
This person is Mr Paul Mason, a 48-year-old from Ipswich, Suffolk.
The reason Paul Mason costs the British Taxpayer over £100,000/year is his weight. Paul Mason weighs 70 stone. That’s 980 pounds, or 445 kilos. Or half a metric ton.
It is reported (and I’m deliberately using these careful words because, as we know, the British press is very adept at conjuring up ‘statements’ from thin air), that Mr Mason does not want to lose weight.
What I can report with absolute certainty is that just three years ago Paul Mason weighed a mere 50 stone (that’s 700 pounds or 318 kilos). So in 36 months this gargantuan person has added an additional 20 stone (280 pounds/127 kilos) to what was his – even back then – morbidly obese frame to become classified by Suffolk Health Authority as ‘Super Obese’.
A 20 stone (280 pound/127 kilo) increase in 36 months?
That is ridiculous.
And something else that’s ridiculous is spending £100,000/year on keeping this person’s life comfortable or, to put it another way, spending over £1,000,000 on maintaining Mr Mason’s ability to continue over-eating.
Instead of giving this guy so much financial aid and physical support the Health Authority, Local Authority, Central Government and Benefits Agency should all be turning off the fiscal tap that is pouring food in to Paul Mason’s overworked gullet.
Instead of supporting his lifestyle they should be invoking severe and critical intervention; should be putting this person in to a position where he has to stop over-eating and, with help, commence a fitter lifestyle.
If Paul Mason wants to eat himself to death (which is plainly his choice) then he should be allowed to carry out that act; however the British Taxpayer should not be assisting him in his bid to commit suicide by food, because that cannot be legal.
If, however, Paul Mason wants to change for the better, I’m all for the provision of intervention to facilitate that.
And before anyone says that Paul Mason has an illness I’ll just say one thing.
Bollocks.
He is no more ‘ill’ than a habitual nail-biter. His compulsion to eat and eat and eat and eat and eat is just down to a lack of willpower which is only equalled by his complete and utter lack of interest to take – in his earlier years – any form of physical exercise. It’s just down to laziness and a surplus of very bad food.
In 1990 Paul Mason weighed 30 stone (420 pounds/191 kilos), yet in the space of less than a year he shed 1/3rd of that tremendous weight; not through the sudden desire to take healthy exercise, but because he was in prison for a year for stealing mail when he worked as a postman.
Now that is positive intervention – 30% weight loss in a year? That’s the kind of help and support that Paul Mason needs.
Paul Mason is a fat, lazy person.
Is this awful of me?
Maybe it is, but balance that statement with the simple fact that the physicians in the Health Authority can find no health-related reason for Mr Mason’s chronic over-indulgence.
But what is even more awful is that each year for the last ten years the equivalent of three Nursing Sisters’ salaries has been spent supporting Mr Mason in his attempt to live off the fat of the British Taxpayer.
And that one, simple, fiscal fact is, frankly, even more obscene than he is.
I dunno…
Even when I was living a fairly sedentary lifestyle (before I got into veggies and exercising), at my laziest and with a thyroid problem, I didn’t gain more than ten pounds a year.
To get to that level of large, you have to have a seriously askew metabolism. I think it would be a challenge to get to even half that size.
Ah Bren you say the tough things so we don’t have to. I have to agree; whenever i see adverts for TV shows about these morbidly obese people i wonder why a) people would watch them, b) companies would pay to film them but mostly c) why on each i should have to pay for them.
Because i’m trying to be fiscally responsible i’m living below the breadline and will be for the next 6-9 months. I have more money going out than i have coming in, so how dare some fat waste of space take my taxes to feed his sugar loving face?
I heard this story on the radio yesterday.
I agree completely with you and I think most people would… even if they don’t say it.
His ambition – so it was reported yesterday – is to eat his way into the record books as the world’s fattest man.
Someone, somewhere, should stop this now.
It seems your opinion is motivated primarily by disgust of fat people.
Fortunately though, disgust doesn’t and shouldn’t play any role in the decision making of the NHS. Otherwise we might deny treatment to alcoholics, smokers, sportsmen or anyone else who intentionally does potentially unhealthy activities.
So what if he is gaming the system? That’s the price we pay for creating a system that benefits everyone.
I still don’t understand why cannibalism is so taboo. The schools of East Anglia would be sorted for a week.
Hahah I like Huw’s comment, but I’m not sure how much nutrition would be served up!
Brenig this doesn’t make you unpopular. It makes you honest. And woolly ethnic peace-bicyclist who thinks otherwise should pay your share of the tax bill for this fatty!
He should tidy up his room, for a start. What a mess! That would get his metabolism moving. Do large people need larger toilet rolls? He seems prepared for gargantuan dumpages.
Mya x
Balls to unpopular Brennig, you’re bang on the mark. I’m aware that shedding 30 or 40 stone would be a massive amount of work for this guy but frankly a dislike for personal effort is not, in my opinion, any reason for the NHS/ council to pay out a cool million quid to maintain the status quo. Will McGugan is right, disgust shouldn’t play a part in the decision making of the NHS however a willingness to help yourself and accept that they can’t do everything for you, you’re going to have to do some of it on your own should. If he isn’t willing to do his part to improve his health condition then they should be allowed to stop treating him. Will mentions smokers so yes, let’s use them as an example. Say a smoker was given a lung transplant but continued to smoke and ruined those lungs. Should the NHS give him another transplant? And another? And another? Of course they wouldn’t, so why should deliberate overeating be treated differently. Take responsibility or face the consequences, because this guy is taking the piss.
Thanks for your views folks, as ever.
Will, please remove those blinkers and take a good cold look at the words I have used. It saddens me that you have either deliberately chosen to misinterpret what is a plain and simple argument for greater intervention as a ‘Fatist’ rant, or apparently the black and white terms I have used are, somehow, open to a variety of meanings in your world.
Vicola is right. The NHS does not give liver transplants to people who have not broken the drink cycle before the operation. The NHS does not give lung transplants to people who have not given up smoking before the operation. There have been many recent news and Op-Ed articles on these themes.
That the Government/NHS/Benefits Agencies are all colluding in state-assisted Suicide-By-Food is what is wrong here. Intervention does not mean encouraging the cycle of food dependency to continue, it means breaking the cycle.
Paul Mason’s continued lack of self-help over the last ten years of state-aided feeding is a symbol of a failed intervention policy.
I can think of better ways of spending £1,000,000 pounds of hard-earned tax-payers cash than on a man so wrapped up in self-obsession that his ambition is Death By Gluttony and he is entirely focussed on meeting his objective.
This is not a story with a Happy Ever After ending – and anyone who imagines for one moment that it does is completely deluded.
The only question is how much longer is the state going to continue wasting valuable support services on a lost cause – for until Paul Mason clearly demonstrates that he is willing to step on the road to a less unhealthy lifestyle, that is what this is…
A lost cause.
Brennig, when you entitle your post, “You. Fat. Bastard.”, you can not then claim impartiality. Similarly you call him ‘obscene’ in the article.
The transplant analogy is invalid, because this man would likely be rejected for a transplant of any kind due to his weight.
If you want to compare smokers to this man, then by your logic we should deny treatment for emphysema to smokers, because treating it will only encourage them to continue smoking.
Will, I realise you are having a problem understanding this topic so allow me to help you out here:
1. You are the person using the word ‘impartiality’, not me.
2. Your analogy to the treatment of smokers for emphysema is inappropriate as I suspect you know. What would have been more correct is if you had picked up the thread on what is NHS policy on refusing to give heavy smokers lung transplants unless they take appropriate steps to deal with their addiction. I suspect the reason you have also ignored NHS policy of not giving liver transplants to chronic alcoholics (as per this example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8159813.stm) is because that doesn’t suit your position either?
Hope this helps.
1. So we concur your opinion is biased by your disgust of fat people?
2. I have no problem with that NHS policy, because the decision is based on medical ethics. The transplant should go to the individual who would receive the best quality of life from it, and livers are a far scarcer resource than money.
But then Paul Mason isn’t going to receive any transplants, just his immediate medical needs.
I trust you will be heartened by the fact that Paul Mason will likely die soon, due to his weight.
Will, I have to repeat myself. Please read the post again. My issue, as is (I thought) abundantly clear is that there has been no positive intervention in this case for over a decade. That is clearly wrong and tantamount to state assisted suicide which, the last time I checked, is actually illegal.
1. We do not concur. My opinion on this matter is based on the appallingly absent intervention
2. We concur, apparently, that the NHS is not an infinite resource and that there are value judgements to be made
I find your sign-off just about worthy of a ten-year-old. You trust? You trust I will be heartened by the fact that Paul Mason will likely die soon, due to his weight?
That ill-considered, sick attempt to position me with your own words devalues you more than you may be aware.
Brennig, are you really of the opinion that none of the dozens (I assume) of medical professionals he has passed through over the years have tried to convince him to lose weight — or give him the help to do so?
The medical profession can only do so much. If the patient refuses to undertake the lifestyle changes necessary to become a productive member of society, then the there is little else that can be done except care for his immediate needs.
You call for ‘severe and critical intervention’, but have failed to elaborate on what this is. I can only assume this is withholding treatments to punish him for over-eating. An untenable position, unless you want an NHS that actively punishes unhealthy lifestyles.
Will, that is the point of intervention. Punishment, if you choose to use that word.
If the person does not reform his suicide-by-food policy the only legal course of action open to the state is to begin withholding all benefits (on a gradually increasing incremental scale).
People don’t like intervention even when it is for their own good.
Tough shit.
I used to work in social work Will and I’ve seen far too many people destroy their lives – and the lives of those around them – through suicidal acts (drink, drugs and even – yes – suicide-by-food).
That’s what intervention is Will. It’s taking the decision-making away from the person who is clearly not fit to make such decisions.
It is the basis of child care legislation in this country, it is the basis of health-care policy in this country. Thank God!
My point is that the various agencies who have been ‘supporting’ this man over the last ten years have very clearly failed – and have failed him, and failed the British Tax Payer.
I agree that this is a ludicrous case but it is of course merely the extreme end of a system that has evolved over the last 15 years or so. It is also dare I say, perhaps a glaring example of the ‘nanny state’.
Although this phrase is used more to illustrate the degree by which modern socialist governments attempt to control our lives, I would argue that the definition could be used to label the way government agencies -in this case the good old NHS/social services (what a double act!) – feel morally bound to look after irresponsible twats like Paul mason. It is the denial that an adult citizen has responsability to the state that partly defines the term ‘nanny’.
We as tax payers spend billions ever year funding whole communities on Incapacity Benefits, Paul Mason is simply the most glaring example of this ludicrous sysyem.
He probably does have a mental illness — he’s probably severely depressed/ can’t see a way forward and that’s why he’s saying he doesn’t want to lose weight. He surely can’t be happy as he is, can he?
Maybe the first step is to get someone in who can persuade him that he is a valuable human being with sth to offer the world (cos everyone is, aren’t they?) … build up his self-esteem, get him out of that black hole, and then maybe he would want to lose weight and could see a different future for himself.
“Similarly you call him ‘obscene’ in the article.
The transplant analogy is invalid, because this man would likely be rejected for a transplant of any kind due to his weight.”
The guy is 70 stone and has got that way deliberately. No one has held a gun to his head and forced him to overeat. If you deliberately overeat your way to the weight of a Vauxhall Corsa, flaunt your ambition to become ‘the world’s fattest man’ and refuse to help yourself despite costing the taxpayer a cool million quid because of your gluttony then I don’t think that ‘obscene’ is the worst insult that could be levelled at you. And the transplant analogy IS valid because the issue is treatment for those who have contributed to their condition and refuse to eliminate the behaviour that caused it, NOT eligibility for surgery.
“You call for ‘severe and critical intervention’, but have failed to elaborate on what this is. I can only assume this is withholding treatments to punish him for over-eating. An untenable position, unless you want an NHS that actively punishes unhealthy lifestyles.”
Well a good start would be to section him under the mental health act and get him into a unit where his dual needs – massive weight loss and the probable underlying psychological issues – can be addressed to allow him to make a proper attempt to get a life back. Continuing to just support the very expensive status quo until his heart finally gives out is ridiculous. If he is incapable of making rational decisions for himself then someone else should make them because not only is he endangering his own life but with his msssive use of primary care trust resources brought about by his deliberate actions, he’s endangering other people’s as well.