By Nina Rakhra
The first article in the book Safety First: Dispelling Myths about Complementary Therapies is called Safety considerations in the prescribing of drugs. This article makes it clear why we so desperately need integrative medicine. It talks about the risks with prescription drugs and how adverse drug reactions are the 4th leading cause of death behind cancer, heart disease and stroke. The numbers are staggering and they go beyond just the number of people who die from the side effects of medication.
What I also found
incredibly disheartening is just how much taxpayer money is needed to keep a broken
health care system going. People are not getting healthier and the costs to
taxpayers are getting higher. Right now, close to 50% of the money that the
Government of Ontario collects through taxes and federal transfer payments is
spent on our health care system. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce projects that
it will be 80% by 2030 if things do not change.
This is a
huge problem and integrative medicine is a big part of the solution! A 2005
University of Arizona study compared the economic benefits of using
complementary therapies to conventional treatments. After looking at 56
economic evaluations, the authors found major cost savings for several health conditions
including treating migraine headaches with acupuncture, manual therapy for neck
pain, self-administered stress management for cancer patients undergoing
chemotherapy, biofeedback for people with bowel problems, and healthier diets
for cardiac patients.
If
complementary therapies are safe, effective and can save taxpayers money, it only
makes sense for integrative medicine to be a big part of the solution to our
health care crisis. Realistically, with prescription drugs costing more than
$30 billion a year and sure to continue rising as baby boomers age, integrative
medicine would save governments and private health insurance companies billions
of dollars.
Just think
about how great it would be if doctors and other health care professionals
built strong relationships with their patients and focused on getting people
healthy instead of mainly having the symptoms of their health conditions
treated with prescription drugs. People
would be healthier and wealthier. Sounds good to me!
It is time
to transform health care in Ontario and integrative medicine is key!!!
