The World Health Organisation takes a holistic view on health: “ Health is a state ofcomplete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Health care today is better than it has ever been. This is because good health care is free and available to everyone. The National Health Service began in 1948, but before then health care was a luxury and only the rich had access to it.. We are the only country to have a National Health Service.
Thousands died each year of infectious diseases like pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, diphtheris, and polio. Infant mortality- deaths of children before their first borthday- was arounf 1 in 20.
Th epoor often went without medical treatment, relying instead on dubious- and sometimes dangerous- home remedies or on the charity of doctors who gave their services for free to their poorest patuents.
Hospitals charged for services, and you had to pay first to receive treatment. The care for the mentally ill was also poor. People were often locked away in forbidding institutions, not always for their own benefit, but to save other people form embarrassment.
Today people have access to excellent standards of health care, including mental health. The NHS offers many treatment options, including medication, counselling, psychotherapy, complementary therapies and self-help strategies.
The NHS offers treatment and services for any problem. For example, speech therapy, hypnotism, chemotherapy, and physiotherapy. The NHS also ahs community workers fo patients that find it hard to get out. These are just some fo the example of the excellent health care we have today in Britain.
However, health care in varies in different cultures. For example, the Chinese have very poor standards of health care. In the 1960/70’s the Chinese put into place the three-tiered framework centered on rural communities, the population of which has long constituted the majority of Chinese.This completely destroyed China’s traditional health care system, which had been in place for thirty years.
In the new system the first- tier consisted of “part-time doctors in health clinics who provided preventive and primary care.” These “ doctors” were farmers who had received a small amount of medical training. However, they werwe the Chinese equivalent of primary care physicians. They would be the first point of contact for people with medical concerns. Many lives would have been put at risk by these poor trained “doctors” because it would of been more than likely they made a lot of wrong diagnosis’s, or just simply ignored symptoms. The second tier of care was commune health centers staffed by junior doctors. Communes were groups of households organized into labor teams who worked on common projects and pooled their income, and this money was used for specific purposes, like health centers.
Commune systems were not equiped for serious illness’s, so again the Chinese were not accessing sufficient health care. And, again, people lives wer ebeing put at risk going form tier to tier to get a diagnosis or the hewalth care they need. People with serious illness’s would be more than likely to die in the wait for treatment.
However, when a more serious illness wa spicked up the patient would be sent to “county hospitals staffed with senior doctors”—the third tier of care.
In the early 1980’s the three-tier system fell apart and the Chinese ehalth care systme had vanished.
Today, in China, the few doctors that remained in the villages now work independently, with little oversight and support.
However, in 2003 China launched its “new cooperative medical system”. Unlike the old commune-based system, NCMS is voluntary and operates at the county rather than at the local or village level. This means it will reach more people and will, hopefully, improve the health of China as a whole.
However, the Chinese have another, unique, way of diagnosisng and curing illness. Traditional Chinese medicine includes a range of traditional medical practices including treatments such as herbal medicine, acupuncture, dietary therapy, and both Tui na and Shiatsu massage.
In India indigenous and traditional medical practitioners pracice throughout the country, treating people like thye are qualified doctors.
The two main forms of traditional medicine practiced are the ayurvedic (meaning science of life) system, which deals with causes, symptoms, diagnoses, and treatment based on all aspects of well-being (mental, physical, and spiritual), and the unani ia a herbal medical practice. This could put India’s people at risk of having the wrong diagosis and not getting treatment they need. Also, people may end up overlooking symptoms because one of these practitioners have told them they are fine.
So, there are many different ways to view health. Also, many different cultures view and treat health in lots of different ways.
Perosnally I think it is best to view health ina holistic way. This means you will look at a person’s entire health and well-being. This wis what I will try to do in my work. I will try to do this by looking at and relating to the PIES.
