Health vs medicine and pharma, by JD

 "...if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be so much the better for mankind – and all the worse for the fishes."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art." 

-translated from Greek by Francis Adams (1849) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hippocratic-oath

Following on from Wiggia's splendid diatribe against the NHS (not his first and probably not the last!) I shall try to add some further thoughts from a slightly different perspective. I was recently a 'guest' of the NHS after feeling unwell with what I thought was some form of chronic fatigue https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs/

This 'fatigue' turned out to be a previously unsuspected heart condition and so I was carted off to hospital for treatment. Three hospitals later (one of them just as a day visitor) I can say with absolute certainty that the NHS is itself terminally ill and its demise cannot be far away!

The Hippocratic Oath referred to above mentions the word 'art' in several places. I was once told by a doctor that they no longer have to 'swear the oath' which is a serious error in my view because that word 'art' is important and is why the oath remains valid. Doctors and nurses are engaged in the art of healing, helping the body to heal itself because that is what the immune system does. It will need help occasionally in the form of pills and potions but unfortunately the medical profession distrusts the uncertainty that is inherent in the 'art of healing' and pretend that 'science' can provide a certainty of outcomes, conveniently forgetting that every person is different and not all patients will respond exactly the same way to whatever treatment is administered. Doctors now follow a mechanical philosophy that people are nothing more than machines and can be mended in the same way that any other machine can be fixed. Doctors have forgotten, in other words, the importance of what used to be called the 'bedside manner' To quote Voltaire - "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

Whether the doctor has a positive or negative attitude is important because this is unconsciously picked up by the patient and could affect the rate of recovery; it is essential to encourage optimism in the patient. If the doctor does not exude confidence in the end result, how can the patient have any faith in his or her 'healer'? (Voltaire also said "Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all," but it is not a good idea to tell patients that!)

My month or so in hospital left a few lasting impressions. It was cold in all three! Perhaps it is just me because I really don't like being cold, at home I have the heating on most of the time. But being cold in hospital meant the nurses had difficulty in taking blood samples from my veins which had mostly withdrawn to seek inner warmth! And the air conditioning, which is another of my pet hates, meant that the atmosphere in the wards was very dry adding to the problem of taking blood samples. None of the blood pressure machines appeared to be working properly, more often than not showing error messages. To be fair they do get some rough treatment being dragged around from ward to ward and between beds. I wonder how many plastic aprons they use in a day? Nurses and doctors would go to the dispenser and tear off an apron from a roll. They would the wear that apron for the brief visit to a patient after which the apron and sometimes gloves would be discarded into the special hazardous waste bin. How many aprons? Why is Xtinction Rebellion not kicking up a fuss about all that plastic being thrown away? Or is it going into an incinerator?

But the most vivid memory was of the food. It was disgusting! I did not see a single piece of fresh fruit bar the occasional banana. Somehow I managed to get a bacon sandwich but I wish I hadn't bothered. There was no butter on the bun, nothing not even margerine and the bacon itself had been purged of fat leaving a very dry slice of tasteless bacon. Verily, a cardboard sandwich!

In the comments to Wiggia's post, Sobers makes some very sound suggestions for ways to reform the NHS or even to start again with a new way of treating the sick. But that would be to continue the current system which is not really interested in having a healthy populace. The pharmaceutical companies need a market for their products so there is no future in curing people of whatever it is that ails them.

It is better, of course, not to become ill in the first place. A friend of mine always used to say "Doctors are best avoided!" until he needed a doctor which he did one day in dramatic fashion: he walked into the A&E department of his local hospital and promptly collapsed onto the floor. "That's one way of jumping the queue!" I told him and he agreed because he saw the funny side too. Fortunately he recovered after a bit of surgical violence, a kidney operation.

Prevention should come from what I call 'psychosomatic wellness' instead of 'psychosomatic illness.' Dr Bruce Lipton has a book called The Biology of Belief and he has many videos with that theme on YT. Dr Joe Dispenza also has many videos on a similar theme. But as my chiropractor once told me "There is no money in that!" meaning the pharmaceutical companies would not be able sell their snake oil to the NHS!

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References:

"Open Your Mind" by Michael Bentine https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780552134927/Open-Mind-Bentine-Michael-0552134929/plp

"The Biology of Belief" by Dr Bruce Lipton https://www.brucelipton.com/books/biology-of-belief/

"The Master and his Emissary" by Dr Iain McGilichrist https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-His-Emissary-Divided-Western/dp/0300188374

"You Are The Placebo" by Dr Joe Dispenza http://www.youaretheplacebo.com/

"HeartMath Institute" https://www.heartmath.org/science/

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