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Well I guess not treating patients is one way to cut costs.........

32.04 BMI.
So I'd still get it...... just.

but they will treat/operate on drug addicts and prisoners but not on people who work pay taxes but happen to smoke or are overweight
this will just be the start and they will go on and on providing reasons not too. i wonder who will be next ? ...

I get it from an obesity point of view. It's just not safe to anaesthetise someone who is massiverly overweight.

I do wish they'd stop using BMI as a measure though, it's no real indicator as to a persons fitness or otherwise for surgery. I had to lose 35kg before they would take my gall bladder out in 2012, it wasn't easy, but I did it. I think each case should be judged on it's merits by the consultant as mine was, they looked at my weight, fitness levels, did fitness measurements and stuff before they decided how much I would have to lose.

Not sure about smokers, if there's an underlying medical condition or something that could affect the maintenance of an airway then I guess it's reasonable, otherwise I'm not so sure.

While that's absolutely right I'm struggling to believe this is motivated by anything other than cost. The medical justification (which was there already) is just convenient window dressing for reducing the service.

I could see smoking being an issue is nicotine in the blood might interfere with the effect of general anaesthetics.

I'm not sure that works really, otherwise smokers wouldn't have been able to have general anaesthetics in times when smoking was far more prevalenet than it is now. Granted there may be new or newer GA's that do have adverse interactions with nicotine but I'm not clear on how much the world of anaesthetics has developed over the past few decades to say either way.

I can only comment personally I suppose, they aren't saying they won't operate, all they're doing is saying that the person has to be medically fit for them to do so with the lowest possible risk. If my gall bladder had exploded then they would have operated right away because the risk of carrying out the surgery was lower than the risk of septicaemia and various other complications. I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that if the surgery *can* wait while the person loses the weight (as mine could) then it should.