Healthy living should be promoted

Oh, the endless discussions on healthcare solutions and health-care spending and still no resolutions.

We keep hearing that the root of the problem is not enough doctors, too few nurses being trained, not enough salaries for workers, etc.

Could the answer lie in the glaringly obvious fact that all the money in the world cannot buy good health. Good health is not a result of spending money here or there in response or as a result of sickness and disease. Our system is totally geared toward the response to sickness and disease, and the response involves pills, in most cases. Virtually no thought is directed toward healthy living and the prevention of all this trouble.

There really should be a government department of Health and Wellness, which would foster natural health totally separate from the “health-care system.” This department could co-ordinate naturopathic doctors, midwives, herbalists, etc., to treat common, chronic conditions without pills and medications, which only produce more side effects and problems.

There are natural solutions through vitamins, minerals and herbs to most common chronic ailments, like the ones that clog our health-care system. Leave the traditional system for emergencies, broken bones and major operations.

Healthy foods can become paramount, grown in our own province. Blood tests to detect vitamin and mineral deficiencies should be standard and available. A simple correction of diet or vitamins can fix so many problems.

This goes for mental health problems, as well. All the therapists and medications in the world are not going to create a happy, mentally balanced person living the way so many are today.

Happiness and good mental health in humans comes from some basic living requirements, for the most part. Those basic human tenets are mostly abandoned today. They are sufficient sleep, good food, good family/community relations/interactions and lots of fresh air, sunshine and exercise.

We, as humans, are living so far removed from what was meant for us since the beginning of time. Every advancement in technology gets us further from being healthy and happy.

Unless a lifestyle of health and wellbeing becomes front and centre in our society, any health-care system will fail because there are too many sick people to begin with.

We must lose the idea that money can buy a healthy society. We must get back to living the way humans were meant to live.

Danielle Robertson, Port Joli