Brass Tacks hits nail on the head

Homoeopathy Today

BRASS TACKS (BBC2, August 17th) in a programme subtitled “A Better Alternative?” examined the plight of many thousands of sufferers from arthritis and rheumatism who feel they are getting little or no relief from the National Health Service treatment. Producer Eric Robson sends us this report.

“We found that many people complain about trial and error prescriptions of brand name anti-inflammatory drugs, about GPs who appear to have insufficient knowledge of the diseases and insufficient time to deal with patients, about long waiting lists and being told there’s little that established medicine can do except advise patients that they must live with the pain.

The second half of the programme met a number of patients who had tried some sort of alternative therapy (including Homoeopathy as provided by Sheila and Robin Gibson in Glasgow) and found that they’d achieved much better results. Dr. Gerard Vaughan the Health Minister was in the studio to answer patients’ questions about why NHS treatment was so poor and why alternative therapies were not given more official support.

Response to the “Return Call” programme, which offers viewers the chance to give their opinion, was an overwhelming demand for more readily available alternative therapy with several hundred correspondents asking for more

details about the availability of homoeopathic treatment. Many viewers were angered by Dr. Vaughan’s assertion on the programme that homoeopathy is available in four units of the country. We received letters from many patients who have to travel hundreds of miles a year to attend a homoeopathic consultation. The point was raised that whilst government pays lip service to beneficial side effects of homoeopathy they stifle advance or expansion by not providing adequate funds to enable sufficient people to train in the speciality. Time and again letters pointed to the imbalance in the health service between the amounts of money expended by the drug companies in research and advertising and the amount available for other research, much of which has to be raised by voluntary contributions and charitable collections.

At the end of the programme Dr. Vaughan admitted that many people are not getting effective treatment from the health service but said that whilst he had no plans to reallocate the funds available for arthritis and rheumatism he would be interested to hear the view of people using the present service.

We’ve forwarded copies of many of the letters we’ve received to Doctor Vaughan’s office and have asked him to let us know if he decides to alter his list of priorities."