Letter to the Editor -
Dear Editor,
The Western Health Board is now sending personnel to hold meetings in various towns in the region. One such meeting was slated for Burgeo, on May 26. I am a member of the Long Range Regional Economic Development Board and at a meeting on May 19, board members were encouraged by the chairperson to attend Western Health meetings, which may possibly influence health care policies.
Yet here in Ramea I was told that only the mayor and two other local residents were invited to the meeting with Western Health representatives in Burgeo.
Our health care system in Newfoundland is very costly, but fails to please many people. The public complains about various issues, such as long waiting times. There is a shortage of nurses. Doctors complain in a very public manner about having to work too much and being paid too little. The obvious answer to the problem is to make more of an effort to keep people healthy, so that fewer individuals come to doctors, specialists, and hospitals. The costs of the health care system could be lowered; the fewer sick could receive more attention.
But the system does not seem to be interested in people like me. I am 74 years old, do not use any prescription or over the counter medicines. I am healthy, active, happy, the father of 10 children, of which the youngest was born when I was 69. I cost the health care system little, and have no reason to complain about it. Yet individuals like me - and I hope that there are many in Newfoundland - are generally dismissed as either eccentric or as very lucky.
The notion has taken hold in our society that a person stays healthy by swallowing a pill or liquid medicine for every discomfort, and to go to a doctor if the discomfort does not disappear quickly. The pharmaceutical industry has grown into a behemoth. I heard over some TV program that constipation alone is a billion dollar business for the industry in the United States.
I also learned from some program that American men consume twice as many pills and other medicines as do British men, yet British men are much healthier that American males. This is a shocker, because British men are certainly not known for having as a rule very healthy lifestyles. The question arises whether all that overdosing with pills in North America is not actually having the opposite effect of what it is supposed to have.
Every day there is on TV a barrage of advertising by pharmaceutical companies, which urge people to swallow pills in order to cope with all sorts of suggested complaints, some ranging to the ludicrous. Yet just about every one of these commercials also has a list, spoken very quickly, of potential side effects of the medication - in one such commercial I actually heard that the pill might cause death. It was stated as plainly as that.
One of my daughters, who worked as a pharmacy helper before going on to study psychology, asserts that a person usually is prescribed the first pill to deal with a health problem, and that subsequent pills are prescribed to cope with the damages caused by the preceding pills.
There is another aspect, which troubles me greatly. I believe that we have so many people who are addicted to illegal drugs because they were raised to believe that they must have recourse to some pill, to some drug, whenever they experience any discomfort, be it physical or psychological.
I wanted to speak about these things at the meeting with Western Health representatives in Burgeo. Above all, I wanted to state that something is needed to counteract the influence of those drug commercials on TV. Several doctors have told me over the years, for instance, that a cold has to run its course, and that all the billions spend on cold remedies are a waste, even if the medicines are not actually harmful. I want to hear of research in whether the old remedy, chicken soup, or a stiff grog, does not do just as much for someone who has a bad cold, than swallowing all sorts of medication and running to a doctor for more.
I had varicose veins, then read somewhere that when racing horses have blood clots in their legs, their trainers rub the affected spot with the open half of an onion. So I started to eat quite often-fried onions, and my varicose veins have disappeared. I would like to know whether this was coincidence, or indeed a cause and effect sequence. When I was 50, I had spots in my vision, and glasses were prescribed. For various reasons, I formed the opinion that washing the face with a lot of cold water brings blood to the eyes and feeds them and makes them strong. Instead of buying glasses, I used a lot of cold water on my face every morning. My eyes improved; I still do not need glasses, 24 years later.
It seems to me that health care professionals should talk to people like me, record our stories, and bring them to the university for research and evaluation, so that Newfoundlanders can be offered tested alternatives to those drugs.
Like, years ago I stepped on a big rusty nail and drove it right through my foot. I put a salt pork rind to the wound; it healed perfectly, with a little pile of rust remaining on the salt pork rind. Is shooting the body right away full of antibiotics really better for the long-term health? My hand slipped when I was sharpening a scythe, and the right index finger was cut right to the bone. I just wrapped a washcloth around it, and kept on working. It healed perfectly. The scar is still there, but the finger is as strong as ever.
I may be a bit extreme, but those who elect to depend on pills cannot dispute that I am still healthy and strong. And that is what it is all about, isn't it?
Randy Lieb
Ramea
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