The medical profession wants us to believe that without an extensive awareness of modern medical concepts as taught in medical colleges people are not qualified to treat patients. But how much of what is taught is actually scientific?
Eminent medical researchers like Dr Richard Horton, Dr Marcia Angell and Prof John Ioannidis who have done extensive research say that about 1 to 15% of medical practices ‘may’ be scientific. The rest are convenient assumptions to suit industry needs.
Before modern medicine vaids and hakims used to treat us effectively. Naturopathy is as old as civilization. If you look at medical history in India, you will understand the extent of propaganda used to destroy the medical system of those days. It would never have been possible without extensive government apathy towards those systems and effectively destroying their base.
HEALTH FROM NATURE
Today medical experts like Dr B M Hegde, Dr Pravin Chordia, Late Dr Manu Kothari and others admit that man is a product of nature so health solutions can only come from nature.
They point out that growth in number of diseases and in number of patients is parallel to the growth of the medical industry thus stating very clearly that it is modern medical practice that is behind our current day chronic disease epidemics. This is known as iatrogenic or medicine induced disease.
According to the modern doctors all present day diseases are idiopathic or cause unknown!
More Professionalisation
All governments in the center have tried to solve rural health problems by taking many steps. They started a rural medicine course for training the local vaids and hakims. These practitioners are working well without licenses. They also allow nurses and pharmacists to practice. Now the governments wants modern doctors to study holistic systems. There is nothing wrong in these steps as it takes a basic knowledge of health to treat people.
The more the professionalization, the more is the propensity to interfere and therefore harm. Late Dr Manu Kothari remarks that a perfectly healthy man goes in for a medical check up. He comes out as a patient! Dr B M Hegde has pointed out that modern medicine often contradicts the principles needed for achieving health.
A medical profession whose actions lead to serious chronic diseases must stop and think about what is wrong. They should remember what their aspiration was when they decided to take up medicine. Did they join medicine to heal people or induce diseases? Did they join medicine to become prescription writers and help sell medicines? Did they join medicine to benefit from the diseases populations are suffering from?
Medics should also think about their own health and that of their family members. Are they healthy? Many years ago a private survey of hospitals in the USA had revealed that doctors are more sick than their patients! It had also revealed doctors know nothing about nutrition and lifestyle. As a result, they subjected themselves to diets and lifestyles that caused their health to worsen.
Medics should prioritize the health of their patients. They should not try to safeguard the health of the industry that provides them their livelihoods. The satisfaction of curing people is greater than inducing diseases. It is more rewarding to lead them towards health than to benefit from managing their illnesses.
MBBS doctors need to be provided knowledge about nutrition, lifestyle and genuine public health measures. They should abandon specialization and become general practitioners/family physicians again.
Today 50 lakh people are injured every year in our hospitals by medical errors and of them one lakh die every year due to complications. We should also try to know the number who are dying from unnecessary over prescriptions and from the treatments themselves.
Health is not just about doctors and prescriptions – these alone can never lead to health. Health is about safe and nutritious diet, lifestyle, sanitation, hygiene, mental hygiene, avoiding toxicity, and safe eco friendly livelihoods that provide a decent workplace and decent income. Many published studies have proven this time and again.
Thus now it is time to come to our senses and rectify imbalances in our society and environment. It is time to ignore what the medical industry and its associations want. What we need is health and not “health care” which is an excuse to sell more drugs and devices to profit the industry.
(Dr Naresh Purohit is Epidemiologist and Executive Member , Indian Medical Academy for Preventive Health. The views and opinion expressed in this article are those of the author)
