Big pharma attacks complementary therapies

The pharma lobby have attacked university courses in complementary therapies as 'gobbledygook'. Hardly a surprise...

Big pharma has little interest in seeing other approaches to health care being promoted - they are interested in the sale of drugs and the subsequent profits only. This attack has come from Professor Colquhoun, of University College London's department of pharmacology.

Perhaps Prof Colquhoun ought to complete one of these degrees? Surely it would be difficult to understand it without sitting at least half way through the course, especially if you come from a field that has little understanding of CM!

Stuart

Parking charges

So hospitals are raking it in through car park charges. It is a difficult one this, on the one hand we need to discourage the use of cars, on the other hospital car park charges often hit poor and vulnerable people.

Of course if hospitals had been built in the centre of towns with good supporting public transport, then we wouldn't have a problem, there could be an expectation that public transport is the best way to get to hospital. Sadly our hospitals are often built out of town - we are told that ambulances can access them better there! Of course if the roads were clearer in town (where people actually live) then ambulances would have no problem accessing the hospitals.

Stuart

Stay healthy

"Tony Blair is thinking the unthinkable about the NHS. He's proposing that people should be given money by the government to spend as they like on healthcare - even if it's in the private sector." Channel 4.

So what is wrong with this?

1.Thinking about purchasing of healthcare is not something that I want to do when I need the healthcare, my concerns would be to get effective treatment.

2. Worrying about the costs of health care is exactly what the NHS was set up to avoid.

3. What happens when the cash runs out, healthcare is not equal provision - personally I don't want to receive any healthcare, I'd quite like not to need to - the NHS was set up to provide healthcare to those who need it, not those who can afford it.

Stuart