Health Care Community Discussion

Synopsis | Electronic Correspondence | Discussion Summary | Participant Survey Questionnaire

I. SYNOPSIS

We held a Community Health Forum in the Phoenix, AZ area December 28th. A local school of complementary medicine (Southwest Institute of Healing Arts) donated the room, the sound system, the parking and the staff to set up, man and take down the room. Sprouts Market donated water, cider, gluten free cookies and fruit. 250 people attended the meeting. Many people spoke; we had a 3-minute limit. Others submitted their thoughts in writing (attached below). Three television stations covered the event.

Surprisingly, we heard very little discussion about how to "fix" insurance. Mostly people wanted to talk about creating a different paradigm for the practice of medicine, since they no longer look to insurance for many of their medical problems.

Dissatisfaction with the FDA – particularly with its ability to be a watchdog on behalf of the public – was a significant complaint for everyone at the meeting. There was considerable sentiment expressed that the FDA is too much in the lap of industry – especially pharmaceutical companies.

When we asked participants to come up with the top issues, here is what we got:

• Create a paradigm shift in medicine, away from disease management
• Fix the FDA and the Department of Agriculture
• Vaccines – not mandated, let people choose
• School lunch programs should be used to teach health
• Education of food starts at home
• Keep a wide variety of choices of health care available
• Ban TV ads for prescription drugs
• People can be taught to take responsibility for their own health
• Electromagnetic radiation from cell phones, computers, etc. – the hazards are not appreciated, energy medicine is not understood
• Chemicals in our environment – we want to know what they are, and medicine needs to understand their impact on health
• Lets work for the integration of holistic health care with traditional western medicine – use the best of both
• Bring what is available in Europe to the United States
• Is the Obama team really listening to what we say?

We heard that energy medicine is the future, yet the allopaths do not understand it. We heard concerns about the prevalence of electro-magnetic pollution. We heard concerns about the lack of understanding of the effect of energy on the body and brain - energy medicine is the flip side of the coin of electro-magnetic fields.

The only topic on which we had a 50/50 split of votes was the issue of the advisability or need for nation-wide electronic medical records.

Of the three participant survey questions,

#1 - The biggest problem in the health care area was perceived as the lack of emphasis on prevention – and during the comments, most of the emphasis was on the shift from "disease management" to the kind of care which creates a healthy population – nutrition, education, thermography for breast cancer screening, herbs and supplements for "filling in the potholes" of nutrition.

#2 – The best way for policy makers to develop a plan to address the health system problems was overwhelmingly answered "community meetings like these". There was a real interest in solutions coming from the people – from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. And the people are willing to work on it.

#3 – What additional input and information would help us to participate in this great debate? Opportunities to inform and bring forth information on solutions – information that we could give about possible solutions - once again from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Considerable interest was expressed in meeting again, as long as two conditions were met: (1) that the information that we are transmitting to you now is actually being read and digested, (2) that we make the discussions about practical solutions to specific problems.

Martha M Grout, MD, MD(H)
Mary Budinger

© Copyright 2007 - 2012. All Rights Reserved. Arizona Center for Advanced Medicine.
Serving the Phoenix metro area including Scottsdale, Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, Tempe,
Paradise Valley, Peoria, Cave Creek, Carefree, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee, Queen Creek