Integrating the Science of Technology with the Art
Natural health care continues to grow
We are living in a time of exciting health care
change as we transition from a traditional disease-oriented approach to
an integrative model of health care. This new worldwide model
incorporates the best both in medical technology and the ancient art of
healing. For the first time in history in the U.S., we are experiencing
a health care model that is consumer-driven.
Nearly 50 percent of the population in the U.S. is
now using some type of natural health care. Consumer demand for natural
therapies and freedom for health care choices are changing the very
core of the health care delivery system. Even the largest health care
systems in Wisconsin are now offering a limited number of complementary
and alternative health care services.
This progress can be seen as most appropriate and purposeful in these
changing times of consumer-driven demand. Though no true model of
integrative health care as yet exists in Wisconsin, we are making
progress. There are a growing number of small centers throughout the
state that are representative of efforts to provide a working model of
integrating traditional medical treatment and natural health care.
Courageous nurses, physicians, chiropractors, and non-licensed
professionals are joining together to offer a model of care based on
respect for the individuals right to choose health care as a reflection
of their patients' personal beliefs and values. As practitioners, we
must acknowledge that health care is an individual responsibility, not
a mandate that can be imposed on others by insurers or health care
systems.
The newly evolving model of
integrative health care will continue to experience many challenges
during this time of transition. In the past, health care has been
politically motivated and economically driven to meet the needs of the
political and corporate systems, not the individual. This new model
will hold practitioners accountable for providing health care that
improves the health of the individual seeking care, be cost effective
and efficient in its delivery. I do not believe the West will ever
embrace the Chinese model where the physician gets paid only if the
patient gets well, but we certainly do need to put more effort into
measuring the outcome of services offered.
Fear and competition are driving the political and
economic challenges. This fear of change is being reflected at the
international, national and locals levels. The large pharmaceutical
companies fear they will lose market share to natural supplements,
homeopathic and herbal products. They are using their financial clout
and the guise that these products are unsafe to lobby for legislation
to block the sale of > natural products and threaten the livelihood
of practitioners who sell them. Diane Miller, the health care attorney
who helped to draft the legislation in Wisconsin to protect the health
freedom rights of both individuals and practitioners, was recently in
Geneva, Switzerland to attend the International Health Freedom
Conference. Through the efforts of an organization called CODEX, an
international attempt is being made to limit the production and sale of
natural supplements and herbal products. This attempt may provide the
opportunity for international, national and local health freedom
organizations to work together to stop the actions based on the
ridiculous fear held by large drug companies that they could lose their
over-inflated profits. I can think of no better-qualified person than
Miller to spearhead a cooperative movement of this kind.
There are over 45 states in our country in which
licensed and unlicensed natural health care practitioners cannot
practice freely without fear of persecution. Wisconsin is one of those
states and there currently is a bill in the legislative drafting
committee to pursue legislation to protect the rights of citizens in
our state to choose natural health care and practitioners who provide
that health care. The Wisconsin Health Freedom Coalition is making
these efforts.
Another challenge that must
be overcome to offer an integrative model of effective health care is
for both the traditional and natural health care practitioners to work
together cooperatively with respect for one another. Both disciplines
must embrace a model of health care that incorporates physical,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual wholeness as the underlying
components that define individual health. No one discipline has the
expertise to provide services that work with all four of these
components. We must work together, without fear of competition, to
assess each patient's needs and refer them to the practitioner who can
most appropriately treat the component causing the problem. We must
work together in appreciation of the benefits that both traditional and
natural health care can offer to assist patients healing and become
whole.
Based on my 20 years of
experience in integrative health care, I believe this can only be
accomplished when practitioners working in a single location receive
appropriate group training to understand the integrative health care
philosophy and how to work together with respect for the modality that
each member of the treatment team provides. In this training, the
practitioner also learns how to live the model of holistic health so
they can become mentors and role models for their patients. This
training is imperative and provides the basis for a solid team-oriented
treatment program that can assist patients to reach their highest
health potential through the healing process.
As individuals we have the right and the
responsibility to reach our highest health potential physically,
emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. In the near future, we
will have integrative health care systems that are designed to assist
the individual to reach this potential. This will occur because the
consumer will continue to demand and pay for services. It will also
occur because we have been given the opportunity to understand the
difference between curing and healing.
Peig Myota, BSN, MSW, BCD, is available for integrative health
care consulting, training and counseling. She can be reached at
262-369-4915, 414-427-7347 or via e-mail at peigmyota@core.com.
Reprinted from Nursingmatters Aug 2004
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Margaret
(Peig) Frakes Myota, B.S.N., M.S.W., B.C.D.
Wholistic Health Consulting
10500 N Port Washington Road, Mequon, WI 53092
262-719-0030 | E-Mail: pmyota@sbcglobal.net
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