A Sick Society?

At this moment the daughters of two of my good friends have got Anorexia & another has got CFS / Fibromyalgia.

A male friend has had a stroke & another has been diagnosed with cancer. One male friend is in remission. Another has Alzheimers. A relatively young male family member has high blood pressure.

Three of my women friends are in remission after breast cancer - one also has repeated melanomas. A close woman friend has an eye problem, another has multiple chronic conditions.

That's just the circle of my close friends, which isn't huge. It doesn't count the friends & family who have already died, both young & old.

One common thread is the concern that something fundamental is wrong with our 21st century lifestyle & environment in the developed world. If my experience is representative the stats seem high to me.

The other common thread is the difficulty of getting a diagnosis and appropriate treatment. There seems to be a lack of willingness to refer patients in a timely way to consultants.

Regarding the first thread the pressures on mind & body today can be almost intolerable. We all lead such busy lives. There seems to be no time to just "be". Sadly I think this is impacting on children & young people too. We ignore the mind body link at our peril. Human beings are complex interlinked systems.

The link between health & nutrition simply cannot be ignored. The prevalence of  "processed" food as opposed to freshly cooked ingredients seems blindingly obviously detremental to me. It also seems obvious that the statistics for the incidence of diseases like obesity & diabetes have risen exponentially.

The second thread is about the lack of enough medics & funding for the NHS. The current situation is not sustainable. We need to have an informed discussion, as a society, about what out NHS can & should do & how we are going to pay for it. It seem to me that things have deteriorated since the role of PCT's was devolved to surgeries. I expect my medics to be good practitioners & if they don't know I expect them to refer me to someone who does. I don't expect them to be administrators & financial managers. Their skills lie elsewhere & they shouldn't have time for that. Their priority should be the welfare of the patient.

I can't help thinking about the many countries I have travelled to where people are far less wealthy & certainly have less of everything, but do seem far happier. Their lives are certainly not easy, but they have a sense of balance & belonging to a community which we have lost.

Health and happiness are treasures beyond compare, we are lost if we ignore that.