How stupid am I?

For decades I’ve accepted responsibility for my own health and wellbeing and only visited a doctor when I’ve absolutely needed to and yet it seems I’ve had it all wrong.

Apparently, what I could have been doing was abusing my body with an excessive intake of all sorts of nasties and then expecting a doctor to cure me while the rest of the population financially supported that treatment via the health budget!

Why do I say that?

Because Dr Peter Sharley, the state president of the Australian Medical Association, said this week that the five million people like me who regularly choose some form of proactive complementary health treatment have been wasting our time and money.

Not only that, he claims our alternative options are making health insurance more expensive, and those who choose only conventional treatment shouldn’t be subsidising those who shop around.

Let me think about that for a second.

My private cover gives me $500 a year for these preventative treatments that I believe help keep me out of a system that sends around five million people to hospital a year at almost $5000 a pop.

Who’s actually carrying who here?

I’m by no means anti-doctor.

Any professional group based on caring and compassion has to be respected and admired, as do the skills of those who perform miracles in operating theatres every day.

If I break my leg I’m going to choose a doctor over an aromatherapist every time.

I am for educated, well-informed choice on any treatment that I believe is in my best interests.

What I want is anyone – doctor or not – who puts the “care” back into my healthcare.

The AMA says any modality that can’t be scientifically validated should be dismissed as quackery, yet some of the most popular alternative treatments have been around for thousands of years, and a number of doctors are starting to embrace some of them.

You’d think if they were ineffectual they would have gone the way of the leech – hang on, doctors are using them again aren’t they?

How can you dismiss stories like that of a friend who had no luck with conventional IVF treatment, but fell pregnant with the help of acupuncture?

She doesn’t need scientific validation – Mobdro App it appears every morning when her little girl rushes in with a kiss.

It’s impossible to ignore the amazing results at the Cancer Care Centre in Unley where supportive complementary therapies play an important role in bringing a caring touch to those waging clinical chemical warfare on their disease.

Science doesn’t have all the answers, and health treatment shouldn’t be an either-or choice.

But it should be a choice.

Source: Grant Cameron, The Sunday Mail 15/10/2011