Experts at Global Health Futures thinks world is should for alternative treatments
Bengaluru: Healthcare is a huge chunk of every country's budget, enough to drive a nation to bankruptcy. Governments have woken up to the growing cost of allopathy and Western medical traditions – the US government's shutdown over funding measures for Obamacare, President Barack Obama's new healthcare bill was a recent indication of this.
The world is now looking for alternative treatments, including homoeopathy, ayurveda and unani, as well as lifestyle choices like yoga and a vegetarian diet, said experts at Global Health Futures – creating integrated solutions to the epidemic of long-term solutions, a three-day international conference organised by Soukya Holistic Health Centre.
Eminent speakers on the first day included Prince Charles, who made the inaugural address through a video conference, Dr Dean Ornish, whose programme – Dr Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease earned him a place in the White House, where he consults on integrated policy making, and Dr Michael Dixon, Chair, College of Medicine London.
Prince Charles apologised for not being at the conference in person. “The silent epidemic of long-term diseases represents the world's greatest health challenge. I spoke about this at my address at the World Health Organization Congress in 2006. Rather hopefully, I urged world health leaders then to consider integrated solutions." He said that healing, resilience and health are inextricably linked to one's environment and social setting. Prince Charles also praised Dr Dean Ornish's healthcare programme to lower the risk of heart disease and prostate cancer.
“There have been no new antibiotics produced in the last 15 years,” said Dr Michael Dixon. “Science should encompass the psychosocial as much as it does the biomedical. Integrated medicine gives the patients what they want, taking into account the perceived needs and wants,” he explained.
Allopathy, when it arrived, was lauded as the answer to all our health problems and it did manage to provide a speedy solution.
The side-effects were numerous however, and immunity to allopathic drugs increased over time, making them less effective and more expensive. Governor H.R. Bhardwaj released a book, Dr Mathai's Holistic Health Guide for Women, written by Dr Issac Mathai, founder, Soukya Foundation.
US needs to bring down cost of healthcare: Dr Ornish
“The US spends $2.8 trillion on healthcare each year," said Dr Dean Ornish, over a cup of tea after the conference. “I don't agree with either the Republicans or the Democrats on Obamacare. What we need to understand is why healthcare costs are so high and what we can do to bring them down.”
What the world is looking at, he said, is a “globalisation of lifestyle diseases – the world is eating like America, living like America and dying like America”. A large chunk of the healthcare bill is spent on battling lifestyle diseases like these, which can be brought down through healthy living, believes Dr Ornish.
( Source : dc )
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