I was grateful for the invitation to accompany Feona Gray, founder
of Connecting Reiki with Medicine, to attend the Integrative Health Convention
in London last month. This convention is
an
I share Feona’s vision that Reiki could play an important
part in healthcare: I would love to see
Reiki as a choice for patients alongside conventional care in the NHS, which is
struggling to cope with the rising need and diminishing funding and staffing. Reiki has the potential to be part of the
solution. However when Feona first explored bringing Reiki into St George’s she
learned that there was a very negative view of it, in fact it was banned in
many hospitals. In many situations Reiki
is not trusted as a complementary therapy, so practitioners are not welcome.
I found that this convention gave me hope that my dreams of
this changing, so that Reiki gains the respect needed for it to become integrated,
could come true. I met doctors who are
not only open to complementary therapies including Reiki, but positively see
the benefit. Margaret Coats, from the
Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, commented to me at the end of the
weekend that there had been a lot of talk about Reiki!
The keynote speaker was Dr Michael Dixon – a GP well known
for his work in integrative health care.
He was one of the instigators of Social
Prescribing, which may be one way that Reiki practitioners can receive
referrals. Dr Dixon noticed a 20%
reduction in GP appointments once Social Prescribing was introduced in his area.
He talked about conditions he and most GPs see frequently
and often have nothing to offer to help: tiredness, back pain, IBS and stress. 11% of the population, he reported, are on
medication for pain, depression stress or sleep problems. These are all things
that complementary therapies, including Reiki, can help with. He spoke strongly about the need for doctors
to work together with complementary therapists.
He dismissed the assertion from some doctors that complementary
therapies are not safe, giving the example that 2000 people die annually from
anti-inflammatory drugs. He also noted
that GPs with an interest in complementary therapies prescribe 25% less
antibiotics. Given that 1 million people
each year die from antibiotic resistant infections this is a significant
difference. Compered to this, complementary
therapies are safe – and with no known contra indications of course Reiki is
one of the safest – and will become even more so, he said, if doctors and complementary
therapists communicate better with each other.
What particularly excited me was his report that NHS England
has recognised that “The future needs to be a future that empowers the patient”. Taking responsibility for our own health and
well being is a core value of Reiki practice, so fits perfectly with this
approach. I hope to see more
professional Reiki practitioners, adequately prepared work alongside doctors
and other health professionals, sharing the work of caring for those in our
community who doctors struggle to help. Connecting
Reiki with Medicine’s project at St George’s Hospital, London is demonstrating how
beneficial a professional team of Reiki practitioners can be, to patients and
staff. For this sort of project to be repeated
around the country we need more practitioners who are willing to prepare for
this work.
I would also like to see Social Prescribing include teaching
people Reiki so that they can care for their health and have some useful tools
to assist them towards a healthier and happier life.
