Could this be an option for the South Worcestershire Joint Core Strategy ? Perhaps I’ll put together a proposal with a view to making a bid for central government funding !
On a serious level, there may be some merit in the “option” of an “Eco-Town” at Throckmorton, near Pershore in Worcestershire.
However, central government’s promotion of this has been nothing short of a disaster, causing adverse reaction and preventing a proper objective consideration of the option.
BBC Radio 4’s “All in the Mind” carried an interesting item on the “covergence” of modern medicine and tradional healing yesterday (see synopsis below). My feeling is (see “The State of Mental Health in Worcestershire” in my blog of 22 August 2007) that we could do with some of this “stronger medicine” in these parts.
TRADITIONAL HEALERS
Western medicine teaches that mental illness is a result of dysfunctional biology or psychology, but in some countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, there remain powerful beliefs that disease and illness are supernatural phenomena, and that health can only be restored by traditional healers acting within the context of the patient’s family and community. Previously there were attempts to ban and exclude traditional healers from modern health care systems, but recently there’s been a rapprochement between the two groups. Joining Raj Persaud to discuss this issue – Dr Dele Olajide, a consultant psychiatric at the Maudsley Hospital in South London who treats many patients who also consult traditional healers, and Tuviah Zabow, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Capetown, South Africa, whose recent paper in the academic journal, International Psychiatry, called for Western-trained psychiatrists to increase their knowledge of traditional concepts and systems.
The Witch of Worcester 