/diary0004a
Government NHS policies are not working. In spite of increased public investment, the prospects for “success” are not good. As currently conceived, the problem seems insoluble, because demand is bound to escalate. Tony Blair clearly understands that there is something dreadfully wrong, but he does not yet know what. Are the resosurces inadquate? He promises to raise funding to the European average. Are professional practices inhibiting change? He has shown himself courageous, in championing the nurse-run NHS Direct service, in the teeth of doctors’ opposition.
But where’s the big idea? I have long felt that our problems are compounded by adverse imagery, a distortion of perception. The NHS’ problem, I have argued to myself, is that it conceived in pathological terms* . We always associate the Health Service with trauma, “putting things right” when they go wrong. We hear praise for great NHS excellence, but it is in the service of a dismal objective. We contact the Service only when in distress, or in pain, or otherwise debilitated. All its associations are with trauma, infection, emergency, disaster.
How can such experiences ever generate positive and pleasant associations? How can the politicians ever win the battle of adverse spin? Is not the NHS, by its very posture, doomed to be the butt of complaint, resentment, grief, and actions for negligence? Is there no way of changing its associations, I have asked myself in my more Machiavellian
political moods, aligning the Service with health, wellbeing, and the enjoyment of life?
As a laymen in matters of health, I have never been able to formulate an answer. But today, I have found a man who can. His name is Mosaraf Ali, a doctor from Calcutta steeped in the homeopathic ways Indian medicine. But he is no impoverished guru, languishing in an Indian village, drumming up funds. He is a successful Harley Street specialist, his Integrated Medical Clinic listing among its patients Geri Helliwell, Kate Moss and the Prince of Wales. His story is well worth reading and told graphically, in the Daily Telegraph. And his message is revolutionary – at least it is to me.
Dr Ali, trained in western medicine but from an Indian Ayurvedic medical family, practises “integrated medicine”, combining both traditions. He claims that the NHS should change tack, “instead of just treating illness, they should help to prevent it.
Back to today's Home Page |
The object of treatment should be to build up a patient’s immune system, he contends. He wants to build a special clinic to demonstrate his theories. “The sanatorium would be filled with flowers and fountains, quiet rooms and relaxation. It would be the opposite of NHS hospitals, with their chemicals all over the floors and superbugs in the air-conditioning. There would be incredible massage, yoga, dietary advice, meditation, meditation, homeopathy. acupuncture, naturopathy. osteopathy, spiritual lectures and Ayurvedic medicine”.
The key concept is naturopathy, “the promotion of health and natural healing by a system of diet, exercise, manipulation, care and hydrotherapy: the philosophy of the system”.
Now, I am keenly aware that alternative medicine is a minefield, with amateurs and fraudsters exploiting the desperate hopes of sick people. But it sounds to me as if there is a baby there, swimming in the bathwater. As a politician, I realise that if our citizens could only identify the NHS with feeling well , rather than being treated for feeling ill, the political battle would be won.
We would be investing public funds directly into the feel-good factor, in a quite literal sense. The whole tenor of the health debate would be changed. Such a change would mean confronting the priorities of the medical professions, which are deeply rooted in pathology, particularly in our “great” hospitals. They are not naturopaths. Even in general practice, pathology seems to rule OK. Is such a fundamental philosophical shift possible? There are certain straws in the wind: Well Woman clinics, cancer screening, Government campaigns to reduce the risk of heart disease, reduce teenage smoking. Could this lead to a decisive shift of professional philosophy? Could this be New Labour's "big idea"?
Dr Mosaraf Ali thinks so. He could well be right.
What do you think? Drop me a line. * “pathol’ogy - the study of diseases or abnormalities or, more particularly, of the changes and in tissues or organs that are associated with disease: a deviation from the normal, healthy state.” • End > to Diary Archive COPYRIGHT > The originating content of this website is my own work, and subject to my copyright. But on one condition only, I hereby given my consent to its unrestricted reproduction for any purpose: the condition is that its source is subject to proper acknowledgment, giving my name, my assertion of copyright, and the name of this website as it source, namely > www.warrenevans.net |