The Emperor’s New Health Service

Add to this further shocking revelations from a health watchdog that more than 2,000 people died in English hospitals last year due to lapses in patient safety and the fact that nearly one million patient safety incidents and near misses were reported – costing us billions of pounds, and you have to ask: “What’s happening? What’s gone wrong?”

 

“Death by doctoring” is nothing new of course. Critics of the errors of modern medicine have ranked it as the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer for a few years.

 

With this in mind, can’t we all now see, that despite his marvellous mantle of medical breakthroughs, stunning surgical techniques and dazzling array of pharmaceutical pills, potions and lotions, “the national health emperor is naked”?

 

It seems not. On we go, queuing up, offering ourselves and our bodies up for treatment, and putting our trust in an organisation that, if it were a private company, would and should have been shut down years ago amid much scandal and outrage.

 

Some say the NHS is like The Titanic; created with the best of intentions, full of innocent and well-meaning people, but destined for disaster based on errors of judgement. No one however seems to care. I’m quite sure that, although it’s possible to spark a worldwide bird flu scare with 60 deaths, the 2,000 who have died from “NHS errors” will have dropped off the news radar by the time you read this column.

 

Please understand this is not a personal attack on anyone in the NHS. Neither is it an extension of that boring, and misplaced, old battle between conventional and alternative medicine. The battle at issue here is our society’s battle against chronic disease. And you don’t need to be a doctor to see that, as a society, we are losing – badly.

 

Therein lies the problem perhaps. Maybe it’s the battling mindset – upon which the NHS is built - that’s the problem.

 

Nearly 100 years ago, Henry Lindlahr, a naturopathic doctor issued a statement entitled - “To the progressive physicians of the age” in which he said:

 

“There are two principal methods of treating disease. One is the combative, the other the preventive. The trend of modern medical research … is almost entirely along combative lines. The slogan of modern medical science is, ‘Kill the germ and cure the disease’. The usual procedure is to wait until acute or chronic diseases have fully developed, and then, if possible, to subdue them by means of drugs, surgical operations, and by means of the morbid products of disease.” (By morbid products, he meant vaccines and the like).

 

“The preventive method does not wait until diseases have fully developed and gained the ascendancy in the body, but concentrates its best endeavours on preventing, by hygienic living and by natural methods of treatment, the development of diseases. By these it endeavours to put the human body in such a normal, healthy condition that it is practically proof against infection or contagion by disease taints and miasms, and against the inroads of germs, bacteria and parasites.” He added.

 

His big question follows and is as pertinent now as it ever was: “Which method is the most practical, the most successful and most popular? Which will stand the test of "the survival of the fittest" in the great struggle for existence?” Asked Lindlahr.

 

This week’s facts and figures speak for themselves, and if the NHS were itself a patient, they are surely a terminal diagnosis. The combative method is not delivering rude health.

 

Our NHS, the medical monolith, that since it’s creation appears to have favoured the ‘kill the germ and cure the disease’ combative approach, is reaping an inevitable and obvious result. As long as we  wait to fight disease, disease will keep fighting back; billions will be spent fixing symptoms and further complications will be created by toxic and invasive treatments in a vicious cycle of personal pain and national debt.

 

When will we wake up and demand the return of common sense, enlightened prevention and a respect for natural law and the human body? Why are we in mass-denial about the NHS’s failings? And why is there no public outcry about the pitiful state of the nation’s health and as we slowly shuffle towards diseased old age?

 

An NHS hospital is still a great place to get fixed up if you have an accident or are in serious pain, but for the chronic, metabolic and environmental diseases - that are all on a rapid rise, I say get a second opinion. Nutrition and lifestyle influences such as stress, over-acidity and toxicity are where the NHS seems to have not a single clue, yet these are pivotal health issues that need fuller investigation.

 

To me, and many of my colleagues, the answers are perfectly clear. Simple, cost-effective solutions exist to the health problems faced by just about everyone we meet – whether they are physically, mentally or spiritually out-of-balance. They are preventive in nature and require a greater sense of personal responsibility that refuses to lumber the cost of bad choices and ignorance on an already burdened health service and fellow taxpayers.

 

Invest in your health. Go see a ‘preventive’ practitioner who can help you build vitality. Why battle when you can build? Why wait for your health to go wrong before you take action and take responsibility?