In the T&T Guardian (May 9) the Min­is­ter of Health was quot­ed as say­ing that "20 per cent of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs im­port­ed in­to the coun­try are coun­ter­feit" and the ef­fects can be dis­as­trous.In the T&T Guardian (May 12) it was re­port­ed that the le­gal de­part­ment of the Min­istry of Health had writ­ten to the DPP to take ac­tion against herbal prac­ti­tion­ers who pub­licly ad­ver­tise cur­ing body ill­ness­es.It is both con­fus­ing and shame­ful that we should reach this state.Min­is­ter, for you to man your ship well you need to ex­am­ine the horns of those on board. The sit­u­a­tion is ide­al for all health­care givers to work in har­mo­ny to cure the ail­ing pub­lic health sys­tem.

Crowd­ed hos­pi­tals and health cen­tres are an in­di­ca­tion that the sick pop­u­la­tion is in­creas­ing. How does this re­flect on those who pro­vide health­care?Rather than take le­gal ac­tion against herbal­ists, have them ver­i­fy their claims and even in­ter­view their clients.The pro­duc­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is an at­tempt to du­pli­cate the works of na­ture (herbs). But we know on­ly too well that the sci­en­tif­ic world knows very few caus­es of dis­eases and ill­ness­es and so their ef­forts are di­rect­ed to treat and sup­press symp­toms, not to men­tion the nu­mer­ous side ef­fects of man-made drugs.The herbal­ist, in an at­tempt to meet the short­com­ings of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal world, em­ploys nat­ur­al means to bring well­ness to hu­man be­ings. The suc­cess here is no dif­fer­ent from that of the of­fi­cial med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers.

Yes, the herbal­ist may not have an ex­act mea­sure­ment of the dosage, but is still able to bring re­lief to pa­tients. Even though the doc­tor knows the ex­act con­tent of the dosage, why isn't there more cur­ing tak­ing place? Why the nu­mer­ous side ef­fects? The trade-offs are com­pa­ra­ble.Do we have a Food and Drug Di­vi­sion? Why then 20 per cent bo­gus drugs and low-end drugs for the poor? Some­times pa­tients in­sist that the pre­scribed drugs are not work­ing but doc­tors in­sist that the pa­tient is at fault, not the drugs.Mod­ern-day med­i­cine is a re­fined de­riv­a­tive of med­i­cine of old. It needs herbs to com­ple­ment it and we should not al­low ig­no­rance to fes­ter in­to ar­ro­gance.

Re­sults com­ing out of the hos­pi­tals are heart-rend­ing. The com­plaints against pri­vate prac­ti­tion­ers are nu­mer­ous. Both med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers and herbal­ists are guilty of op­er­at­ing like preda­tors: lit­tle time for clients, high ser­vice charges, ex­pen­sive drugs and poor re­sults.If herbal­ists are per­pet­u­at­ing false­hood it is on­ly be­cause of the in­com­pe­tence of the med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers that they are able to have their way.The ul­ti­mate so­lu­tion, Min­is­ter, is there must be a con­cert­ed march to­wards pre­ven­ta­tive med­i­cine.Lit­tle or no ef­fort is made to en­cour­age peo­ple to be re­spon­si­ble for their health. Make health­care a ma­jor com­po­nent of the ed­u­ca­tion syl­labus, ex­am­inable at all lev­els of ed­u­ca­tion, the be­gin­ning and end of our every­day ex­is­tence.

A healthy pop­u­la­tion is a hap­py and pro­duc­tive pop­u­la­tion.

Lennox Fran­cis

Cou­va