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Meanwhile, we have still allowed the gross injustice of the RCVS Statement (November 2017) to remain in place, with all the negative knock-on effects. While the original outcry and insult have tempered with time, the situation remains entirely unsatisfactory. I quote from an unsolicited email I received only last week:
“It appears we have a mutual client. Xxxxx has just registered and been seen by our practice. I have made it clear to the owner that any homeopathy will only be used as auxiliary treatment for Xxxxx and to be a patient of our practice we are the primary care givers and must always be contacted first with any issues. Please can you make sure this is adhered to at your end as well. I would consider anything else a breach of the RCVS code and would be handled as such. I have no issue with homeopathy unless it is used in place of evidence-based medicine. Many thanks in advance for your co-operation.”
While, on the face of it, this message appears courteous, it is in fact anything but. It is written to a veterinary colleague of equal standing, yet has the effect of being a command, quite apart from the injustice.
In my opinion, we do not serve justice, science, homeopathy, our clients, our patients and our successors at all well if we sit back and leave this travesty unchallenged. While we had (and still have) a plan on the table for the next move, and while the publication of the original Australian NHMRC Report has been somewhat in our favour, the hysteria and panic around COVID-19 has taken over agendas in government and in the RCVS. Our ‘little’ issue would probably not receive an airing just now.
Anyone watching the human world in these strange 2
times could be forgiven for reflecting on the etymological coincidence in the word ‘PANDEMIC’. It is formed from the word ‘PANIC’ enveloping a shortened form of the Ancient Greek word for ‘the people’ – ‘DEMOS’. The people have been put into panic and have readily surrendered many freedoms and principles in exchange for the hope that someone is going to dig them out of this mess... Worse may be yet to come in the erosion of personal liberties. What times they are in which we live!
Even Brexit, that so occupied the halls of power for so long, has taken a bit of a back seat in the media. However, that little issue has yet to be resolved and may change lives considerably, when it finally happens. It may even represent another serious challenge to veterinary homeopathy in the UK.
Committee meetings have gone on throughout, without interruption, because we were anyway holding virtual meetings. We have now moved the BAHVS Discussion Group to a new Google Group, as we were unable to access the previous one to update subscribers. We had no password after the tragedy of Stu. Similarly, the Committee now also has a new discussion Group, in order to make updates possible. All new Committee members are now included in the new group. Steps have been taken to avoid such a hiatus being able to occur again. We have also addressed the matter of a very dated Constitution. It has been redrafted ready for airing at AGM.
Last issue, your JVP (Ilse Pedler) kindly took my place to write the President’s letter. I was more than grateful for this help. I was suffering, and still am, from having very disparate eyes, making computer work (and all my unaccustomed admin. work) very challenging. I had my ‘blind’ eye operated on for cataract before the lockdown
and it is now seeing well but long-sighted. My other eye (very short-sighted) is awaiting the next operation. Focussing on close work can be a real challenge, as my long-sighted eye is the dominant one (it was even more fun, in a different way, when that one was blind!). I have now become accustomed to the struggles to focus and to the headaches and dizziness that result. It will nonetheless be a real treat when I can have both eyes singing off the same hymn sheet! As for the old ticker, having had such a terrible autumn and having reached rock-bottom again, just before last Christmas, I am delighted to say that I mercifully appear to be back on full song.
We have the Autumn events to which to look forward. There will be more info on the website soon (bahvs.com) but, with the Faculty Congress sadly falling to COVID, we have had to make alternative arrangements for our AGM and gathering. These may be virtual or in person, depending upon circumstances prevailing at the time or may even, for the first time, be both. Necessity is the mother of invention. It is possible that things will change and developments be announced at short notice, so please watch the Discussion Group and the website carefully.
I believe this to be my penultimate President’s letter. I have felt not only enormously privileged to have been in this office for the three years but also massively frustrated that the big challenge of my term has not been seen through to completion as a result of COVID. However, the campaign does not end here!
I hope you are all well and that the ‘pandemic’ has not touched you. Enjoy your summer, whether going away or staying at home. Chris