I cannot believe the absolute arrogance of whoever the idiot of a doctor was on Inside Out: London this week, who supported the current desire to have The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (RLHH) closed. I found his manner patronising and insulting, which is actually the sort of manner one would expect from a conventional doctor. He kept banging on about getting rid of medicine that does not work and keeping that which does, while clutching his latest little gadget that, apparently, informs him of all the latest research. In a way he may have a point if it means we keep homeopathy on the NHS because it DOES work and get rid of statins, antibiotics, and a plethora of other conventional medicine that clearly cause as many problems as they, occasionally, solve. It is a shame he has not taken the time or professional responsibility to look into some of the very stringent tests undertaken upon alternative medicines that have shown that they do, indeed, work.
For someone who suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome conventional medicine has NOTHING to offer, indeed, it has only recently deemed to recognise the condition as a real illness. The RLHH has been a wonderful experience, a flagship for the way a decent NHS should be run. It is not the RLHH that should be criticised but the rest of the NHS and for that doctor to state that he would like to be able to winge at a consultant for 45 minutes about a problem is insulting in the extreme. I presume he prefers the 3 minutes rushed diagnosis from a disinterested GP as a model for perfect health management? He sort of accepted acupuncture might work (it’s only been around for 3000 years, if it did not work, I think someone may have noticed by now, a bit like antibiotics, which have been around for less than 100 years and…oh yes, don’t work so well now in the face of mutating strains of bacteria, what a triumph for conventional medicine there, along with anti-depressants, high blood pressure and heart treatments, certain forms of cancer, not to mention Thalidomide, the list could go on).
I also find it odd that doctors like him are happy to triumph the placebo affect as their way of explaining the effectiveness of alternative medicine. An effectiveness they, obviously, accept as why else would they need to support an alternative explanation? The explanation they choose; the placebo, would have been dismissed by conventional medicine a few decades ago. It was only discovered by them by mistake when building in a neutral comparison group in drug trials. The fact is that conventional medicine’s knowledge is, woefully, incomplete and for them not to accept this is the height of ignorance and arrogance. A few centuries ago they would have been recommending a course of leeches as a cure for everything. At least, they learnt a lesson there, or did they? They spent the last 30-40 years doing the same with antibiotics and anti-depressants and now we are beginning to reap the consequences of their lack of wisdom. Advocates of conventional medicine should get off their high ground and have the sense to acknowledge that they do not know the full picture, do not have all the answers and until they do they should remain open-minded and support alternative practice and diversity of choice in the NHS, after all the government are always informing us about patient choice. Well, I and many others who have seen first hand the effectiveness of the work undertaken by the staff at the RLHH choose to attend the RLHH and would choose not to be treated by closed minded, arrogant and, largely, ineffectual, doctors such as the one featured on the programme.
