Children receive spiritual healing on NHS

Independent
London hospital appoints 'energy channeler' to help young leukaemia patients with side-effects of chemotherapy
By Julia Stuart
13 March 2005


Graham King stood last week at a hospital bed and placed his hands gently on the head of a 12-year-old boy suffering from leukaemia. He slowly moved his hands to the boy's chest. Using the power of cosmic energy, Mr King was helping to heal him.

In a ground-breaking move to complement conventional cancer treatments, Mr King, who has no medical qualifications, has been appointed the first paid National Health Service healer to help Britain's sick children. With the blessing of the hospital's senior consultants, Mr King was laying his hands on the body of Martin Johnson, who in 2003 was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia that can prove fatal.

He was being treated with reiki, a type of healing which is believed to have originated in Tibet thousands of years ago. Practioners claim to channel energy into recipients using their hands placed on particular areas of their body.

Mr King, 57, is now employed by the paediatric oncology ward, an acute cancer unit at Middlesex Hospital in London. He treats around eight children a week during 30-minute sessions, always with consent from parents. Patients remain fully clothed.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=619552

QUACKERY taking over from science....whatever next?

but a replacement. If it was good for Tibetans for thousands of years, maybe it isn't quackery after all. As long as it doesn't have any side effects and isn't being used as an unproven replacement, it's fine with me if they do it.

What next? Crystal healing?

as an epidemiologist I can attest that there have been a few well-run, thoughtfully conducted studies that have shown that patients who are prayed for, even if they don't know people are praying for them, have better prognoses than people in the control group who aren't prayed for.

I can't explain it -- maybe "positive human energy" or something, but the effects are statistically significant. If I can find a good pdf I'll post the link here.

"Channellers" no more effective than hospital cleaning ladies rattling rosary beads in a patient's direction....

it has killed fewer people than Western Medicine (taken AS prescribed) which is one of the LEADING causes of death?

That's an idiotic statement.

From someone who went through successful chemotherapy to cure stage 1, intermediate grade lymphoma.

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Since the people in the study were blinded to such an extent that they didn't even KNOW they were IN a study. Their families were able to give informed consent since the intervention was so innocuous.

but when you start charging for them, I object.

Exploitation of the sick and desperate.

as long as it's used as adjunctive therapy, not as primary therapy.

I live in Indian country, and I've seen their stuff work. I went to an acupuncturist who stuck a spike into my left ear and my considerable pain was GONE ten minutes later.

I've seen people who were in pain and terrified relax after their church's prayer group came in and mumbled over them.

Quackery is when any of these practitioners tells you to throw away your pills and cancel your surgery because they can heal you without any of it. Quackery is also when whatever they do causes real harm, and standard allopathic medicine is occasionally guilty of it when some new thing comes along (like radiation in the 30s or botox today).

As a nurse, I was fully in favor of anything that made one of my patients feel hopeful, even if it was a bible station on the TV in his room 24/7.

but as a child I was "prayed for" many timesfor my tonsilitis AND IT STILL HURT

Guess what really helped?

antibiotics

Whether that is some sort of higher energy, evolution, or the great pumpkin, I think the statement is true. I have seen first hand that Reiki can work in conjunction with modern medicine. I think prayer in healing has more to do with human energy than "Jesus Energy."

reassurance helps someone. I have more faith in Tibetan theory than in
Christian Benny Hinn crapola. I would have it done if I was that sick just for the quiet simpleness of it.

and I can assure you that thay are not "quacks".

.