Scum-watch: Burn, terrorists, burn!
How wrong I was.
FURY erupted yesterday as it was revealed the NHS is lavishing more than £5,000 a day battling to save the suspected car bomber who turned himself into a human torch at Glasgow airport.The whopping bill for specialist treatment is being run up even though Kafeel Ahmed’s chances of survival are said to be “practically zero”.
The cost to taxpayers emerged as Scotland Yard last night brought the first charges over the attempted bomb blitz on the UK a week ago.
...
Hospital treatment, skin grafts and round-the-clock nursing care have already cost a massive £36,000.
Every day up to 15 cops are on armed guard at the hospital — costing taxpayers thousands MORE.
A source at Paisley’s Royal Alexandra Hospital said: “It’s ironic considering he is accused of wanting to die. A lot of people think he should have been left to burn."
One would expect that anyone else who had suffered similar injuries, self-inflicted or not, would be treated in exactly the same way as Ahmed. The Sun almost appears to be suggesting that certain people, purely because of what they're alleged to have done, should be refused treatment and left to die. This prompts the question: where do you draw the line? Should only terrorists be refused treatment? How about murderers? Should those who try to commit suicide and fail, or self-harmers' be similarly denied? After all, they did it to themselves. Why should the taxpayer pick up the bill?
Health care, like the justice system, should be blind. Those seeking treatment shouldn't be judged on what they might have done, but on what's wrong with them. Ahmed, despite what he attempted to do, is as much human and as much deserves to live as the rest of us. This might seem unpalatable to some, and the cost of doing so might seem astronomical, especially if the patient might well die in any case, but to start refusing treatment is an incredibly slippery path. Regarding others as below the niceties which we extended to each other is something "they" do; the very last thing we should be doing is emulating their contempt for humanity in general.
The Scum leader additionally picks up the baton, in a comment titled "Terror madness":
THE £5,000 spent each day easing Kafeel Ahmed’s pain is mind-boggling.Plenty wish he’d met his maker. But a cop’s heroism prevented it.
Yeah, and? Plenty of people are treated against their will: Ian Brady springs to mind. By the way, by "plenty" does the Sun happen to mean "we"?
He has the generosity of our welfare state to thank for those efforts, though he’s unlikely to thank a soul.
The tireless battle by NHS staff to save his life is a tribute to the democracy Ahmed would seemingly like to destroy.
Indeed it is. What does it say about our freedom and democracy that the nation's biggest selling newspaper wants to rip-up those very freedoms and seemingly let such people die without treatment? Our democracy deserves better than a newspaper which demands we do exactly what the terrorists' themselves want.
Labels: Glasgow airport attack, inhumanity, Kafeel Ahmed, Scum-watch, Sun-watch
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