The Third Way To Health?

The principles of health are simple. The politics of health get more and more convoluted.

"Faced with an end to provincial government funding, the Tzu Chi Institute announced today that it has re-invented its business model to become an 'enterprising charity' that will follow a 'third road' between government-funded and profit-making health care."

Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Vancouver, BC, Oct. 17, 2002

It has happened. BC government operating grants for the alternative-health focused Tzu Chi Institute have been terminated!

Where is the tax money going that was once channeled into integrative medicine? What is the vision of the BC government for consumer health care?

Canadians need to ask some questions.

The government does not get involved in how I maintain my home. The premier of my province does not interfere with my decision regarding the motor oil I put in my car engine, or whether my car doctor is recommending gas and oil additives for better engine operation. But the health of my body seems to have become a political controversy and I don't have a choice!

The key phrases in the two opposing sides of modern medicine are "government-funded" (taxpayer money) and "for-profit" (corporate moneymakers.) If the investment of my money is involved in my health care, then I want say in how it's spent!

Modern health care is not about health. It's a euphemism for an internationally operated pharmaceutical network based on the propaganda that we've been fed for the last 100 years: chemical drugs correct disease. But chemically addressing a disease symptom does not heal; it sets up a symptomatic reaction that requires another drug to correct! Hence, the gradual popularity and acceptance of healing therapies that are "alternative." Gradually consumers all over the world began to say "no" to drugs. They sought advice elsewhere. They educated themselves and treated health problems with vitamin nutrition.

In 1996, the international Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation established the Tzu Chi Institute in Vancouver through a generous private grant. The model was to be "innovative health care": new approaches, new modalities through a "wholistic approach" to the treatment of mind and body. It made sense. The BC government and the corporate medical community appeared to tolerate it. (Perhaps they were both just biding their time.) Now the political axe has fallen. No more money! And the Institute's proposal for survival is another Band-Aid applied to a serious, life-threatening wound: private funding, donations, memberships, and grants and fees for medical services.

It may work for those who can afford it, but it will not answer to the needs of the people.

The interference of the international health police is systematically removing your health choice.

The fact is that you are probably not a dummy when it comes to your body. You've figured it out: optimum well-being is logically the result of traditional, whole food nutrition, sunshine, fresh air and exercise all part of the original (free) health plan. You're personally interested in staying well and you'd appreciate more than a scrawled pharmaceutical prescription to reduce that high blood pressure, for instance, along with another drug prescription for a diuretic to alleviate the consequent water retention! Learning from your physician about diet, nutritional supplements and exercise that promote wellness would be a welcome return for your health-care spending.