Quack! Quack! No thanks David you can keep your snake-oil

PAG are holding a meeting this week at which alternatives to the NHS will be outlined. There’s the detail as always Manx Radio which at something of a loose end as MHKs and MLCs pack up their buckets and spades and swimming trunks for the long break has so far managed to turn this into several news items. I feel a sense of dread that more media ‘quackery’ will follow.

I’m less concerned by the impact of media quacks though than any 'reforms' in this direction that David Ashford MHK (Health Minister) deems worthy of sending our way.

I should put my cards on the table here I have written on a number of occasions over the years to DHSS (or equivalent) CEOs recording my personal appreciation of the generally excellent health services we have in the Isle of Man.

The record of the Health Services is all the more impressive given these straitened times when successive Treasury Ministers (the latest Alf Cannan MHK) try to withhold adequate funding for its work.

I don’t want alternative medicines as favoured by odd balls like Prince Charles and I don’t want Chinese acupuncture or whatever other fad is doing the rounds.

I think our health services has done pretty well over the years without quackery or snake-oil and long may it continue to do so. If David Ashford MHK wants to fundamentally change the way health services are delivered I think he should first take a long hard look at the traditional model which, for all the faults some people find with it, is pretty good.

He can keep his snake-oil I don’t want it!

Image: What next the ‘Ashford model’ of community health care!

Bernard Moffatt