A few years ago I was working as a volunteer in a township clinic in Cape Town. As a white, middle-class, English woman, I thought like one and did not appreciate what poverty meant. This was one of my first patients and a profound learning experience for me:
A woman came into my clinic with her daughter. The daughter seemed lifeless and slow. She slumped across her mother, sleepily. Her mother described her as unhappy, she did not want to eat, always felt cold, for an African girl she looked pale and her hair looked sort of pale as well. I prescribed Silica (as a tissue salt) and told the mother to bring her back next week. The next week a bouncing girl came through the door, I did not recognise her at first. Her mother relayed that her daughter had life again and was eating. She was hungry all the time. The mother thanked me hugely and then said that only problem she now had was that she could not afford to feed her daughter.
Poverty is part of the disease. Poverty is a maintaining cause to ill health. Poverty is a huge tidal wave of need. A massive issue to address and one, most of the time, I cannot fathom. However, in my researching I have found: when there is disparity between the rich and the poor both suffer from higher rates of ill health, crime, mental illness, environmental problems and violence. Out of 20 countries the USA (one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with half the worlds billionaires) has the highest levels of social problems, crime, lack of education, mental illness, suicide, diseases of all sorts. Even though 1 in every 39 Americans are millionaires, one in 7 (39.1 million) Americans live below the poverty line. Japan and Sweden have less wealth disparity and less problems. Should we not be looking at these models of society to find the way to live in harmony with each other, the earth and with health?
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