The Telegraph is reporting that in Great Britain, an 83 year old woman has been told to find a new doctor because she lives too far from the practice, causing excessive damage to the climate. In a letter, her doctors office informed her:
“Our greatest concern is for your health and convenience but also taking into consideration green travelling issues. Re: Carbon footprints and winter weather conditions, we feel it would be advisable for patients to register at surgeries nearer to where they live”
“We would be very grateful if you could make the necessary arrangements to re-register at another practice.”
From the Telegraph article:
The West Road Surgery declined to comment. Andrew Stride, the head of governance, risk and customer services for NHS South Essex, said: “We would advise all patients who have concerns about any aspect of local NHS care to contact the patient advice and liaison service.
“While we are unable to comment on individual cases, we would like to assure patients there is a procedure GP practices need to follow before they can remove patients from their lists.”
I imagine the investigation into why those procedures weren’t followed and an 83 year old grandmother was booted by her GP will begin in earnest, at any moment. Even then, we’ve skipped right past the lunacy that this is about a carbon footprint for a two-mile round trip.