Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century
Louise McLean of Homeopathy Heals Me has launched a petition in defence of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital: https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/nhs-greater-glasgow-and-clyde-save-the-glasgow-homoeopathic-hospital. We urge supporters to sign this.
NHS Lothian is concluding a public consultation process which looks set to end funding of homeopathy in the area by the NHS, and to seriously threaten the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital.
The idea that a genuinely informed public discussion can take place at a time of heavy propagandising against homeopathy is absurd. In these conditions, it was hardly surprising that NHS Lothian’s own document, Should NHS Lothian pay for homeopathy? A Consultation, contains factual errors in the explanation of the case against homeopathy, and fails to put the issue into a proper financial context.
The table below is drawn from NHS Lothian’s own figures, and it shows that NHS Lothian spends more than 10 times as much per head of population (sick or well) as it does for a homeopathic appointment.
At the same time, according to the British Homeopathic Association website page on ‘NHS referrals to homeopathy’, homeopathy is helping those with chronic and difficult to treat illnesses:
The Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital (GHH) also treats thousands of patients every year. The hospital offers the only chronic fatigue syndrome service, commissioned by NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, which is good for patients with this difficult illness as homeopathy is known to help significantly
All those in the NHS Lothian area should support the British Homeopathic Association’s call:
It is therefore critical that you write to your MSP, Councillor, and anyone you know of who you might have a voice to help keep services on the NHS, e.g. Community Council, Patient Partnership Forum, Community Health Partnership, etc. to highlight the issues with NHS Lothian’s consultation process and the need to keep the homeopathy services in Lothian. As well as writing to your constituency MSP, you can also write to the seven regional MSP's that represent them. This will cover a wide number of contacts and should mean that the 14 other MSP's who cover the area that the clinic serves will have to get involved and many of those MSP's are supporters of the clinic and homeopathic provision generally. (From the BHA website page: ‘This April, get involved in the Lothian Consultation’.
The sources can be accessed here: (1) NHS Lothian consultation document; (2) NHS Lothian website; (3) NHS Lothian accounts for 2010/11.
Glasgow
