Listen to the Today in Focus podcast from the Guardian based in the UK here, for a description of the problems facing the National Health Service (NHS). The NHS is supposedly completely tax funded, has been around for 75 years and is very closely monitored, the result is that we see the collapse more starkly than elsewhere, but I am certain that in the USA and Canada as well as other advanced countries this process is well underway.
Depending on how health services are organised, publicly as in the UK, privately as in the USA or a hybrid structure (Canada) the reasons most frequently cited for falling levels of service are underinvestment, high cost of services or both. While the delivery of healthcare is complex in organisation and the clinical interventions used, and so solutions are going to be very involved, there is a simple approach which I think should be part of the mix in improving the quality of lives as citizens.
While lifespan has gone up dramatically, healthspan has taken an equally dramatic dive, with teenagers developing degenerative conditions seen before only in octogenarians. Obviously this will increase the demands on healthcare. A simple and inexpensive way to improve the wellbeing of the general population, would be to introduce and make widespread the daily use of vitamins at levels calculated to remain non toxic, not at levels calculated to avoid a specific disease. At the very least vitamin C should be brought into widespread use. Vitamins are simple and inexpensive, their effectiveness, while clear to me, could be scientifically proven by a widespread study of entire populations, to determine any changes in wellbeing. Vitamins are the most sustainable intervention we have, we evolved with them.
Vitamin C, in correct quantities, is a potent immune function booster, and can keep at bay many illnesses for years. Any plan to tackle our health care systems should incorporate this simple, inexpensive, effective and sustainable approach.
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