Spirituality vital to health care: Philpott

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/08/2024 (396 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jane Philpott is on a mission to improve health care in Canada — and she thinks spirituality should play a role.

Philpott, who served as a federal health minister from 2015-2017, includes that idea in her new book Health for All: A Doctor’s Prescription for a Healthier Canada (Penguin Random House Canada, 2024).

In the book, Philpott, a former family doctor who is currently dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Director of the School of Medicine for Queen’s University, examines four aspects of what would make for a good health care system in Canada: the clinical side, social aspects, the role of government, and spirituality.

Specifically, she advocates for a health care system that is similar to the way Canadians view schools. In the education system, no matter where a family moves in the country, they can expect their children to be able to attend the nearest school.

Noting that over six million Canadians don’t have a family doctor, Philpott believes there should be a similar system, which she calls “community health care,” for the way Canadians can get help when they are ill — no matter where people move in Canada, they should be assigned to a doctor closest to where they live.

In Philpott’s view, Canada did a great thing when it developed medicare, an insurance program that ensures all Canadians can get access to free health care. But, she said, it never put in place structures designed to deliver that care — something that became painfully obvious when the pandemic strained health care systems across the country.

To fix the health care crisis, Philpott believes attention must be paid to not only to the roles of health care professionals and politicians, but also to the spiritual side of well-being.

“I’ve been thinking about this for 40 years,” she said in a recent conversation with me, noting her ideas are drawn from her experience as a family doctor in Canada and from serving as a physician in Africa and her involvement in federal politics.

“I feel I have a rather broad view of what is working and what isn’t,” she said. “I know there are solutions and I thought I needed to write about it.”

For Philpott, spirituality — which she defines as having hope, belonging, meaning and purpose — also plays an important role in health care.

“It’s about having a whole person view of health,” she said, adding “it’s very easy to only focus on physical aspects of well-being. Increasingly, we are recognizing it goes beyond that. It’s hard to be physically healthy if our souls are hurting.”

In this, she takes inspiration from an Indigenous idea of a circle, or framework, of well being that emphasizes a balance of mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health.

In that view, hope comes from a feeling of being grounded in a sense of identity and values; belonging occurs when people feel connected within their families, community and culture; meaning is derived from understanding how our lives are part of a larger story; and purpose is attained when people feel they have ways to contribute to the larger community and society.

“I was impressed as soon as I saw it, it was so beautiful,” said Philpott, who grew up Presbyterian and now attends a Mennonite church.

Places of worship are well placed to do these things, she said, noting they can be particularly helpful in providing people with community.

“There is an epidemic of loneliness today that is very damaging to people’s health,” she said. “Many people lack community, they don’t feel connected, there is nobody looking out for them.”

This includes the many older people who are known as “elder orphans” — seniors who either have no children or their children live far away in other provinces or countries. “These are people who have nobody looking out for them,” Philpott said, noting that places of worship can provide that sense of connection and support.

This could happen through something like parish nursing, a program that finds retired nurses or doctors either volunteering or being paid to check in on members or others in the community to make sure their health needs are addressed. “That would be a step in the right direction,” Philpott said.

Another way places of worship can help address the health care crisis is by advocating to politicians for better access to health care for those who are marginalized and vulnerable.

“If we are true to the values of our faith, we should advocate for everyone to have access to good health care,” she said, adding that she is not in favour of the privatization of health care.

“Access to health care should not be based on income, but should be based on needs.”

This, Philpott said, is an aspect of health care that all religions should recognize and support. “Our goal should be to support those who are most vulnerable,” she said. “We should raise our voices, saying it is unconscionable that so many today don’t have access to a doctor. It’s not acceptable, it’s not the kind of society we want to live in.”

Of course, it will take much more than spirituality to fix the health care system in Canada. But, like Philpott said, it can play a role. As researchers at the Mayo Clinic put it in 2019: “Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide.” That sounds like a good prescription to me.

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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