Treatment without medicine through ‘social prescription’! What’s behind the new trend?

Author:Kalpana Jain
Nowadays, in some western countries, doctors are not treating patients only with medicines. The trend of ‘social prescription’ has increased here. In this, doctors are writing prescriptions to connect patients with their community. Under this movement that started in England, the ‘treatment’ of connecting patients with the social group of their choice is being adopted. These groups could be people who like knitting, sewing, or visiting museums, or others. In this method, the effort is that as many people as possible feel better without medicine.

pill based therapy
The conditions in which people are born, grow up, live and work have a profound impact on health. But with a few exceptions, doctors do not treat social conditions. The modern health care system is based entirely on pills and procedures.

Champion of social prescription
Bogdan Chiva Giurca, a London-based doctor who champions social prescribing globally, says under this new movement doctors no longer ask patients, ‘How are you?’ Their question is, ‘What do you want?’ he/she tries to know what is going on in the daily life of the patient, which could be the root cause of the disease.

Emphasis in America also
The trend of ‘social prescribing’ is also gaining momentum in many American cities. Insurance companies are emphasizing on this in view of increasing diseases. You will be surprised to know that spending time in a museum has a good effect on health. This has been revealed through research. In view of this, an insurance company from New Jersey has agreed to pay the price of the museum ticket.

Life Story Club
Doctors in American cities are trying to prevent the diseases caused by loneliness and old age without medicine. A doctor in the city of Cleveland some time ago started a ‘Life Story Club’, where young people can listen to the life stories of the elderly and learn from them. Ardeshir Hashmi of the Cleveland Clinic says that the elderly who used to get admitted to hospitals only because of nervousness, now find courage in socializing with the youth.

lack of interaction
A major reason behind all this is the lack of interaction between people and the interference of ‘business’. For example, how long the doctor and the patient will interact and what medicine the doctor will prescribe largely depends on the insurance companies.

social doctor
My childhood doctor was familiar to my parents and my entire family. My children’s doctor also knew our family well. This information helped them catch the disease early. That is to say, those doctors were connected to their society and prescribed many home and social remedies without writing social prescriptions.

returned patients
In today’s commercial environment, social relations with doctors are becoming not only difficult but impossible. Our doctors don’t know us, and neither do we know them. During Covid, many patients were turned away from American hospitals because doctors thought they were coming to the hospital out of panic. But many such persons died on their way back home. In these cases, if doctors had social information about the patients, they could have understood them better.

non-medical reasons
Today loneliness is increasing everywhere. The Ministry of Loneliness was established to address the problems arising from increasing loneliness in England. One in five people in England are ill for non-medical reasons such as loneliness, financial stress or poor housing.

silence of old age home
Many people go to old age homes in old age. An 85-year-old friend of mine lives in one such old age home. his/her son and daughter cannot take care of him/her due to their busy schedules. When I go to meet him/her, I find silence like death in the old age home. There are people of about the same age sitting there, seemingly waiting for death.

expanding scope
In such an environment, the practice of social prescription is quite understandable. But the problem of loneliness is not limited to western countries only. Nowadays people everywhere are spending more time on their mobiles and less time with family. The situation of loneliness which is prevalent in western countries today is increasing rapidly in India also. According to statistics, in 2023, 1.25 billion people were feeling ‘lonely’ or ‘very lonely’. To be honest, there should be no need for any doctor’s prescription to strengthen relationships with loved ones. At the same time, other countries should take stock of the loneliness that Western countries are facing today.