I hope you have all had a good break with family over the festive season. If you’re struggling getting back into the grind, I feel you!
This month I’ve written quite a long piece on the yawning chasm in the public healthcare system, and why more people are turning to complementary therapies to redress this void in their own self-care. Enjoy!
Contents:
The Yawning Chasm in New Zealand Healthcare (and what you can do about it!)
Free Life Coaching Offer from a Client
Pro Bono Days
Music Corner
A Yawning Chasm in New Zealand Healthcare
(And what you can do about it!)
My General Practitioner (GP)
When I was a kid, I hated going to the GP with Mum. Not because I didn’t like him. But I knew that no matter what time my appointment was, he was always going to be late, sometimes an hour or more late. And hanging around for ages in crowded waiting rooms, overflowing with sick patients, and only boring copies of way out of date women’s magazines to look at, was my idea of pure torture.
But when I did finally get in to see the doctor, he always made me feel welcome. He wanted to know all my news, how I was getting on at sports, how I was feeling in myself, before we even started on what I was there for. He cared. And that is probably why he always ran over time with his patients.
I’m not saying he was the perfect doctor. Sometimes he could be quite judgemental and prescriptive. In those days doctors were like demigods, and they knew it. If I chose to ignore their advice, then ‘be it on your own head’, was the attitude.
But in general, I felt I could trust my doctor to dictate the best course of action for me, because he had won my trust by taking the time to know me, and also because he was, well, God. He knew best. Holy, rather than holistic, perhaps. And I knew no different.
Now when I go to a GP clinic, I never know which doctor I am going to get, if I can even get in. It’s always a lottery. And I’m ok with that, because I know that most of them don’t really have the time to understand the whole me anymore. The patient-GP relationship has changed. I have 10 minutes at most to state my 1 or 2 complaints - no time for 3 or more, make another appointment for those – have my blood pressure taken, get the prescription, or referral to a specialist, and away you go – next please.
On the plus side, I don’t need to wait around for as long, usually not more than 10 minutes, they don’t want people hanging around too long in this pandemic age. And there’s usually a tv for entertainment, along with a slightly wider range of magazines. These days we expect everyone, including our doctors, to respect our valuable time.
Sadly, hospital specialists seem to value their own time more than ours, and when we do get in to the eye guy, we are just one more cataract in a whole list of cataracts for their day. They care even less about our sore back, sleepless nights, and stressful life. They are very, very good at what they do, but that’s it. In my limited experience, I’m lucky if they even make eye contact, while they ask their three questions, add a note to our file, then point us to the door. I found this attitude repeatedly with specialists, when I was running Mum to her various appointments later in life. Her geriatrician was a welcome exception who did care and wanted to understand, but sadly Mum could only see her once or twice per year.
Many of my clients tell similar stories. However, there are also one-off stories of the special GP who does take the time to truly care about their patient. And nurses in general, still show amazing care for patients admitted to hospital or rest homes. The rest home where my mum spent her last years showed phenomenal care and empathy.
Medical people are humans too, but they are caught up in a system that is all about throughput, spending the minimum time, deal with the chief complaint. I wonder if looking back, these medical professionals realised what they were getting themselves in for, whether they would do it again? Most just don’t have the time to do more than the bare necessities, though, as I have noted, a few do try. I’m sure most of them hate that. The system is all about efficiency and doing more with less. Medical care is horrendously expensive, and our taxes just don’t cover the demand anymore. I won’t even start on Emergency Department waiting times.
So the specialists do their best to fix our whatzit, then its back to the GP … for your ten minutes.
Sadly, that means that there is a growing void in the overstretched medical system. National public healthcare is not able to care for the individual as a whole person, or even to pretend to. Patients have become used to this system. When they have the sore whatzit, they go to the doc to get the whatzit fixed, drugs or scalpel. Then go away until the next whatzit breaks down. They expect no more, and sadly younger people have no different experience to relate it to.
Now medical care as I know it, has never been holistic, even when I was younger. It tends to be there to fix your whatzit, after it breaks. It’s never had a preventative bias. Sure, once we have the heart attack, assuming we survive, we are given a lot of lifestyle and dietary advice, which is great. But the heart has already been damaged and will never be quite the same again.
No wonder there is a lot of scepticism when a non-medical person comes along – the complementary therapist – “What does holistic even mean?”.
Complementary vs Alternative Therapy
Medically trained people have a jaundiced view of anyone proclaiming to be an Alternative Therapist, and rightly so.
In my view, alternative therapy means a replacement for conventional medical therapy. Some charlatans in the past claimed to cure cancer, for example. That is not what I’m talking about.
There is no one therapist that can ever be the be-all and end-all, other than, reportedly, Jesus Christ. I believe conventional medical care absolutely has its place. However, I also know there are sound alternatives to the ‘drug-em or cut-em’ mentality that has crept into that profession.
I prefer the term Complementary Therapy, as it provides people with a menu of possible therapists that may genuinely help people more holistically - but does not replace conventional medical care when needed.
Holism / Complementary Therapy
We have to get away from the medical system mentality that the body is a discrete entity, separate from the mind; and that the body can be further broken down into a collection of discrete ‘whatzits’ within that body.
The mind has a powerful, some would say the determining, influence on healthcare outcomes. The prominent surgeon and author Bernie Siegel once considered that 95% of cancers have their origin with imbalances of the mind. True healing must incorporate both body and mind as a unit, and also consider the influence that environment, experience and attitude have on where people are, health-wise, at any given moment.
Complementary ways of working with maladies in the body can be effective at reducing pain and helping the body re-establish its own balance. These therapies tend to be focused on the whole human’s health, rather than its whatzits.
Furthermore, complementary therapy is often preventative. In the same way that we get regular services for our car, we can do the same for ourselves. Rebalance physically, release tension from the body, and reduce our stress.
True holism would incorporate diet, exercise, environment/whanau, psychological health, spiritual health, as well as body-mind therapies. So, few therapies can claim to be wholly holistic. But treating body and mind together is a great start.
Stress in all its forms is a killer, the only thing that varies is the individual symptoms – the heart, the cancers, blood pressure, IBS, allergies, the back pain flareups, etc. If we get motivated to change that for ourselves through a complementary therapy, then we will also be more likely to also accept agency for our diet, exercise, mental health, career choices and relationships as well.
The complementary therapist wants to help address the holism void in the medical system. They will talk to us as a real person, understand our life situation, our stresses, our symptoms, and spend quality time. They want to provide us with a more holistic, or at least a head-to-foot, usually hands-on, therapy. When was the last time a doctor put their hands on you for more than 2 minutes? Unless you were under anaesthetic?
Hands-on therapy feels great! And, because our mind re-engages with our body during the session, we feel better mentally afterwards as well. There are also powerful hands-off options too. The therapist may even introduce other strange concepts you hadn’t considered before like your energy flow!
Bridges from Medical Care to Self-care
Unfortunately, at the moment, your GP is not going to refer you to complementary therapists, they are simply not allowed to refer to non-registered health professions.
However, we have to remember that Osteopathy and Acupuncture were once considered fringe whacko therapies, but have since become more accepted in the medical system, as evidence has proved their efficacy. But this started with people just trying these therapies out of desperation, then the word eventually spread, before, ultimately, the medical system begrudgingly acknowledged them.
I note that ACC are now allowing mirimiri and some other traditional rongoa Maori healing techniques for funded treatment of injuries. The Treaty lives! However, ACC still specifically exclude all other healing techniques that aren’t registered medical services. Baby steps.
In lieu of any medical referral, I believe that many people are now quite happy to accept responsibility for their own healthcare. They are no longer reliant on a medical system that just can’t provide a holistic model of care.
Self-care is an individual’s agency to choose complementary systems that help them maintain balance, prevent more problems, and may even help them develop mindfully. Medical care then becomes an adjunct to be accessed when required.
Can Complementary Help Me?
Complementary therapies often suffer from a lack of an evidence base, but this is slowly changing. Associations are collecting this evidence in books, and peer-reviewed journals such as The International Journal of Zero Balancing and Transformative Touch https://thekeep.eiu.edu/ijzbtt/
These evidence bases are not nearly as broad as the medical system. One has to consider that the huge majority of medical based studies on drug efficacy, are funded by Big Pharma. Complementary therapies don’t have this funding base, and are an anathema to Big Pharma anyway. Why would they be interested in funding a study to reduce pain without drugs?
For those wanting to consider other therapies, check out these online evidence bases, check with others that have tried the therapy, and check out any reviews that the therapist may have on their website.
Ultimately the best evidence comes from your own experience of trying one out to see what works for you. But also, critically, your assessment of whether you can trust and feel comfortable working with a given therapist.
For the most part, the touch-based therapies I employ are very gentle, so the down-side risk is minimal. The worst that can happen is a neutral experience. But who knows what the up-side might open up for you?!
It’s possible that some reputable complementary therapies that prove to be effective will eventually rise from the mist, and may ultimately become registered health providers, in the same way that Osteopaths have. Or maybe complementary therapies will just continue to remain apart from the medical system, part of the menu of choices available to Self-care seekers.
For my own complementary therapy case …
… I am not trying to replace the medical system - GP’s and the specialists are good at what they do. All power to them for that. But in the under-funded public system, treating you as a whole person is not their province anymore. They only have the bare minimum time for your worst whatzit.
I am here to listen to you, spend a good amount of time with you, and care for you as a physical and mind-based being, who is doing your best to keep your balance in this topsy-turvy, pandemic-rife, crazy, stress-inducing world.
It’s regular, preventative health care that feels great to receive (much like a regular massage), that helps you reset, that nudges your body to heal itself, and that your mind will love you for. You will probably become more mindful too.
Just maybe your aches will diminish, you’ll feel more balanced, integrated and grounded. I have around 50 regular clients seeing me for exactly that every month, with more coming each week through word of mouth.
Like them, you’ll feel your own energy coursing through your whole body after your sessions.
And you won’t be facing your challenges alone anymore.
Free Life Coaching
A good friend of mine, client and an all-around generous, top lady, based in Wadestown, has let me know that she is offering some FREE life coaching for a while. I don’t know how many sessions, or any other details, but if you want to enquire further drop me a line and I’ll pass on her details to you by private message.
Pro Bono Days
These are continuing in 2023. Currently I have dates set aside from January to March, with more planned from May onwards.
Ngaio - Tuesdays: 21 Feb and 21 Mar – 9am-12:30pm
Upper Hutt - Wednesdays 22 Feb and 22 Mar – 9am-12:30pm
Music Corner
This month’s song has the theme that no matter who you are, you were put on this earth for a reason. Your adventure, should you choose to accept it, is to discover and live that reason.
Shaina Noll – You Can Relax Now
With caring and kindness,
Rhys Dwyer
If you know anyone, from kids up who maybe struggling with body-held tension, energy levels, stress, anxiety, choices, or seeking more meaning in life, then please ask them to check me out. Bodywork and present moment awareness may just make a big difference.