Every morning, I take my jar of green juice out of the freezer. It’s a reminder and an ideal more than a magic potion, but my body is crying out for its fuel. My motivation to get involved in health prevention came first from financial incentives. Health is wealth, anyone who has ever struggled with disease knows that. As a self-employed worker, I have no private insurance, neither for the physio nor for the orthotist or the dentist. I don’t take any medication, except for emergencies. I don’t have sick leave either. 2014 cost me dearly: 13 weeks of absence for cancer. The health insurance card does not cover everything.
I wrote a book on health prevention, and the recovery plan of the Minister of Health appeals to me. During his press conference last week, Christian Dubé (considered an excellent manager by many people in the industry) recalled that the aging of the population and the lack of personnel would be unparalleled challenges in the future. Quoting the president of the College of Physicians about the hospital system: “We have often made the diagnosis, now we have to treat the patient. »
With all due respect to the minister and some of his predecessors, one key element has quickly slipped under the radar of this $8.9 billion battlefield: prevention.
Michel Clair (ex-president of the Study Commission on Health Services and Social Services) spoke about it 20 years ago, the late Dr Jean Rochon too. Mr. Dubé mentioned that with healthy lifestyle habits, we wouldn’t need to cure people. He even cited Norway and Denmark as examples. The problem is that in this recovery plan, 188 million are allocated to prevention (we add 47.9 million for the prevention of pandemics).
Only 2.7% of the budget to try not to turn a problem (list all your bad habits, that should do it) into symptoms, then diagnosis, then medication, months of waiting to see a specialist, get a surgery or treatment, playing trial-and-error (a game the word “science” does not spare you), living with mild or debilitating — even lethal — side effects or a diminished quality of life. And that is when there is a treatment or a drug, or when the correct diagnosis has been made.
It’s okay, doctor!
A doctor told me recently that a patient replied that he was “fine” to a routine question. She had her list of medications printed: three pages!
He was fine, Doctor… but under the influence. Patients boosted artificially stuffed with chemical molecules with various side effects imagine that they are “well”. Christian Dubé spoke of a change in culture and mentioned that “it takes time”; one cannot say so well. The duty reported on 1er last April one-third of Quebecers aged 65 and over who take at least ten prescription drugs in the year, according to the National Institute of Public Health.
The problem with prevention is that it is difficult to quantify and that there is no incentive to encourage us to do so in the current system. We get nothing because we don’t smoke, we exercise and we eat our vegetables.
The doctor of the future will not give medicine; he will train his patients in body care, nutrition and the causes and prevention of disease
“The problem is the diagnosis,” says Éric Simard, doctor of biology and president of the Professional Association for Integrative Health. “It is not possible to have recommendations for healthy lifestyles if one is in good health, since no diagnosis specifies the lines of care. This researcher specializing in aging observes that the health system does not have a specialist in “the” health, only specialists in the disease. “The closest thing to such a specialist is a naturopath. But there is nonsense in this area; you can do your online course in three hours. There are excellent ones, but the profession must be supervised. »
In integrative medicine — taught at Harvard for more than 30 years — whose foundations are based on patient involvement and multidisciplinarity, we find more of this idea of preserving health gains. “What the Minister of Health is doing is equivalent to building fire stations, but not installing smoke detectors. In conference, I always say that people wait for a serious diagnosis to change. Me, I say “change now!” »
Pill culture, follow the $
We all want changes in a system that is deeply allergic to it; think of the famous faxes… There are three times fewer staff at the Ministry of Health in Sweden for 10.4 million inhabitants, underlined the Dr Yves Lamontagne, former president of the College of Physicians, in the Montreal Journal.
We are devoting even more resources to keep the juggernaut of 300,000 employees going, while the volume of patients should be reduced upstream, in particular through prevention education. “We are in a culture of the pill, notes Éric Simard. But the population is interested in prevention. The problem is the data. The pills, it is demonstrated with a placebo study. On the other hand, jumping from a third floor, there is no study on the consequences, but you know that you are going to hurt yourself. »
It’s time to stop trying to optimize the health system and to optimize the health of the population
This longevity specialist mentions that 32% of people aged 85 are affected by a form of dementia, and women are overrepresented. “The rate of dementia will triple in 2050 in absolute figures! We cannot support this collectively. We know that, just with diet, we can achieve a reduction of 50%, and with exercise too. There are studies of reversing Alzheimer’s with the ketogenic diet, people getting back to work and gaining a few years of independence. Lifestyle habits can have a big impact on chronic disease. Unfortunately, there won’t be a clinical study where we’re going to tell someone: stay on a couch, we’ll buy you the beer! »
Too bad, there would be volunteers in spades.
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