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from the today-I-learned-that-gaming-disorder-is-real dept.
Increase in gaming disorder in UK forcing people into private treatment at home or abroad
Jan Willem Poot, 40, a former addict turned entrepreneur who set up the clinic, said it was seeing a 20-30% annual increase in people – mainly young men – coming in with gaming dependency. "Also, in the beginning it was eight to 10 hours of playing but at this moment we have got kids who game 18-19 hours a day. They sometimes go weeks without showers and are not eating."
Gaming disorder is defined by the World Health Organization as a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour so severe that it takes "precedence over other life interests". Symptoms include impaired control over gaming and continuation or escalation of gaming despite negative consequences.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rivenaleem on Monday August 19 2019, @09:59AM (14 children)
Sell people a package with a chance of containing the treatment for gaming addiction.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday August 19 2019, @12:03PM (12 children)
We don't sell health care 'packages' in the UK. The National Health Service is paid for by the government funded by taxation. Everybody who needs treatment for recognised conditions gets treated regardless of how much they have paid in. The fact that WHO have only just 'recognised' this as a genuine condition means that funds haven't been allocated for this specific need.
My own view is that this should be a very low priority for health care. There are far more important things needing treatment than gaming addiction.
(Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Monday August 19 2019, @12:35PM (3 children)
Groan...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box [wikipedia.org]
It was a good attempt by someone at an ironic joke, loot box gambling mentality being what the victims are addicted to, its a "funny" to propose their treatment be a similar gamble...
As a kind of related issue, you'll note that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_humor [wikipedia.org]
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_humour [wikipedia.org]
don't just link to the same page. That would be a pretty funny April 1st joke, but y'all probably don't have April Fools day over there anyways.
Anyway, have a nice day... err... let me translate that from "midwestern USA" to "airstrip one" for you ... Have a right jolly good tea time my dear chap.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday August 19 2019, @12:56PM
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 19 2019, @07:46PM (1 child)
A post that not only explains the joke but links to two separate Wikipedia articles explaining what humor is.
You must be great fun at parties!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @08:23PM
Still preferable to his Hitler cosplay.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 19 2019, @01:07PM (7 children)
Enter the death panels!
And their view is most likely very different!
Let us also keep in mind that this health condition inordinately affects the young, and hence, fixing it has larger payback than fixing similar mental health problems for the elderly.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday August 19 2019, @01:54PM
The NHS doesn't decide which medical problems are recognised. They accept that WHO decision in this instance. But as that decision has been made only recently then there are no funds allocated to that area until the next budget. The NHS will have to take money which is currently allocated elsewhere.
So you are saying that there are relatively few things more important than gaming addiction? Which ones? Traffic accidents? Kidney failure? Birth defects? I didn't say that it wasn't important, I said that there are far more important things to consider. When the NHS is short of funding - as it currently is - then it is right to prioritise on the more important and some things are bound to be of a lesser importance.
Of course, their view is different - they are only thinking of their own problems. Society has to balance that against the needs of everyone. Unless you have a similar system to that, say, in the USA where the rich will be OK but the poor might not be able to afford any treatment whatsoever.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @02:36PM (4 children)
As opposed to what, the private insurance death panels that exist in the US? How many people have died due to lack of access to healthcare? Answer: Tens of thousands per year. Even for people with insurance, insurance companies routinely try to weasel out of paying for people's care to save themselves money or simply don't cover certain procedures to begin with, which can and does endanger lives. Or, you can just go bankrupt from medical debt, which is one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the US.
Yeah, the rapacious, price-gouging, murderous insurance companies are so superior to the Evil Death Panels in other first world countries, even though the latter produces far better outcomes for the average person in just about every way. No healthcare system is perfect, but for every flaw you can point out with some implementation of some country's single payer system, the same flaw likely exists in the US system in a much worse form.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 19 2019, @09:01PM (3 children)
And public. Don't forget the various regulatory agencies that decide what health insurance should be covering. The point of the "death panels" remark is that there's always someone who decides how much healthcare you receive. With private insurance and payment out of your wallet, at least you, the patient are on the death panel.
You can always sue them, if they break contract. Who to sue, if some agency, not even part of your government, decides not to recognize your illness.
It's more like tens of millions a year worldwide. You will never have access to healthcare that will keep you alive as long as you want to stay alive.
And that's pretty much the talking point defense of every other health care system in the world - that it's not quite as bad as the US system. Imagine if you told your boss that you shouldn't be fired because you're not the worst employee he/she has?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @09:24PM (2 children)
If someone always decides, then I'll go with a universal healthcare system, because that has been shown to work better by all the other first world countries that have tried it.
If you live in a democratic country, you have a chance to vote to improve the healthcare system. That might not be easy, but most people don't have the money or resources to play games with giant, rapacious insurance companies, either.
Nope, because most people don't have the money or time to sue insurance companies. And oftentimes, the insurance companies don't even need to break the contract, because the contracts are overwhelmingly written in their favor to begin with.
There are tens of thousands of preventable deaths happening in the US every year due to our broken healthcare system. Other first world countries somehow don't have this issue.
Other countries have significantly better outcomes for the average person, and have less expensive healthcare systems overall. Not only are they better, but they are significantly better, That's really the key point here: Regardless of what theoretical objections you may have to universal healthcare systems, they demonstrably work out better for the average person than the US's death panel system. What matters is what happens in practice.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 20 2019, @01:15AM (1 child)
Notice the use of the phrase "other countries". The US has already tried universal coverage for selected groups via the Veterans Administration and Medicaid with rather terrible results. The failure is more than just not having the right sort of high level system. My view is that a market-based healthcare system worked fine for the US in 1970 (and would be pretty good compared to the health care systems of today). What changed since is far more than just slightly more rapacious insurance companies. It's many decades of good intentions that caused more harm than they fixed.
As I see it, eventually the US system will fail, somewhat more universal coverage or not. Then it'll naturally degrade to sucks-to-be-you healthcare for the masses. And I can't say that will worse than the present or your proposed change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @11:23PM
That is not universal coverage; that's a bandaid that leaves rapacious, price-gouging insurance companies in charge. Again, the facts speak for themselves: Other countries have tried universal healthcare systems, and they've worked far better than any "market-based" system. Even the countries that have comparatively more market-based healthcare systems such as Singepore have to employ hefty regulations to make it run smoothly. There is no evidence whatsoever that some complete free market system would work.
Except for the tens of millions of people not covered, you mean. If you ignore the countless issues it had, then sure, you can say it was great.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday August 19 2019, @05:36PM
Fortunately UK citizens can simply pay for private treatment if they don’t like what’s pffered on the NHS
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 19 2019, @12:34PM
Get them to debug 8048 assembler programs - worked for me!