[Scpg] ECO-Film Night -The Real Patch Adams,Sustainable &Caring Health Care Thurs, May 27, 7pm

Wed May 19 08:08:55 PDT 2004

The Real Patch Adams,Sustainable &Caring Health Care

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network ECO-Film Night
Presents:

The Real Patch Adams
A documentary film by Judith Bourque
Thurs, May 27, 7pm, $3donation
SB Public Main Library, Faulkner Gallery

Patch Adams, physician, clown, & founder of the Gesundheit 
Institute(www.patchadams.org), has been putting into practice the idea that 
"healing should be a loving human interchange, not a business", for more 
than 20 years.

Join us and our co sponsors as we explore the idea of sustainable & caring 
health care with this film and two other shorts:
·       The Canadian Single Payer Health System, A Model for Reform
·       Health for All Californians Campaign SB 921
Which discuss successful national health care in Canada and what might be 
possible for California in the future.

For more info: (805) 962-2571, or sbpcnet at silcom.com www.sbpermaculture.org
Cosponsored by Health Care for All California, Santa Barbara Chpt (805) 
682-5183. www.healthcareforall.org/, & Hopedance Magazine

ARTICLE IN HOPEDANCE MAY /JUNE 2004

EcoFilm Night "Sustainable &Caring Health Care" Thurs, May 27, 7pm
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network ECO-Film Night Presents:The Real Patch 
Adams A documentary film by Judith BourqueThurs, May 27, 7pm, $3donationSB 
Public Main Library, Faulkner Gallery.
         Meet Patch Adams, the real person behind the hit movie "Patch 
Adams," starring Robin Williams. Patch is both a medical doctor and a 
clown...but he is also a social activist who has for the last 30 years 
devoted his life to changing America's healthcare system; a system which he 
describes as expensive and elitist.

         American filmmaker Judith Bourque, long-term resident of Sweden, 
traveled to West Virginia to the Gesundheit Institute, the non-profit 
foundation that Patch created to make real the building of a dream. There, 
among beautiful mountains, hardwood forests and waterfalls, Gesundheit! 
advocates hope to construct a holistic rural hospital and
healthcare community based on the vision of what healthcare should be like. 
That means patient care where laughter, joy and creativity will be an 
integral part of the healing process. Healthcare will be provided without 
cost and doctors will carry no malpractice insurance. Doctors and patients 
will relate to each other on the basis of mutual trust, and patients will 
receive plenty of time from their doctors. Allopathic doctors and 
practitioners of alternative medicine
will work side by side.If you think that all sounds like a utopian 
impossibility, it isn't. Patch and his colleagues practiced medicine 
together that way for 12 years in what he calls their "pilot project." They 
saw 15,000 patients.Through an in depth interview with Patch you will hear 
his story...about the journey from suicidal despair in his youth to
making the decision to devote his life to the study of what makes people 
happy. The viewer will also get to follow Patch on his travels to other 
countries as he clowns for sick children or teaches courses in "The Joy of 
Living."
This film provides the opportunity to think about some very important 
subjects in a light hearted and thoroughly entertaining manner. It is of 
interest to anyone who works in healthcare, as well as anyone who is or 
will ever be a patient...in other words, everyone.

         Patch Adams, physician, clown, & founder of the Gesundheit 
Institute(www.patchadams.org), has been putting into practice the idea that 
"healing should be a loving human interchange, not a business", for more 
than 20 years.

         Join us and our co sponsors as we explore the idea of sustainable 
& caring health care with this film and two other shorts: The Canadian 
Single Payer Health System and A Model for Reform and Health for All 
Californians Campaign SB 921 which interviews with Californians who have 
been impacted by the rising cost of premiums and lack of access to care 
despite having insurance, graphically demonstrate the need for structural 
reform of our fragmented health care system. The video explains how 
California Senate Bill 921 (Kuehl), proposes unifying
         California's present fragmented health system financing, with a 
single state agency collecting affordable premiums and paying fair 
reimbursement to current providers. With all Californians paying a fair 
share, the cost for quality, comprehensive care is affordable for all. With 
unified administration, the cost is controllable.

For more info: (805) 962-2571, or sbpcnet at silcom.com,www.sbpermaculture.org
Cosponsored by Health Care for All California www.healthcareforall.org 
(805) 682-5183 Santa Barbara Chpt,

ALSO in Hopedance Magazine NOV/DEC 2001 #34 Permaculture The Quiet 
Revolution  www.hopedance.org
An Interview
DESIGNING CARE CONVERSION WITH PATCH ADAMS AND Susan Parenti 2001
short exerpt

SUSAN P: It doesn't take much to go a stretch
and notice how in our society receivers
of care are perceived as burdens. For,
after all, what are they doing but
taking? Burden permeates all language
around care. It's assumed. Well-meaning
book after well-meaning book asks how
can we deal with the burden of care, who
shall have the responsibility for care,
how can we pay people enough to take on
the burden of care. Care does not move
in one direction only from generous
giver to unfortunate needy receiver, but
in both directions at once; the giver
becomes a receiver, and the receiver a
giver. When I use the word care, I
understand it as going in both
directions at the same time. "In
Permaculture, everything works both
ways."

PATCH : Looking closely, I saw many glaring
examples where loss of care- turning
care into a burden as Susan would say-
did horrible things to the practice of
medicine: it became greedy; it became a
business, with insurance companies and
pharmaceutical and hospital suppliers
swarming in for their share of the
profits. Care is never where greed is.

The only saving grace within the greedy
medical system was the health
professionals who still cared. Yet
whatever real care I found came from the
nurses, orderlies, cleaning people, or
volunteers- mainly people in lower
paying jobs, most of them women. The
rude, top-of-the hierarchy doctors got
the most money (anyway before corporate
medicine) but gave the least amount of
care. Care was clearly devalued. There
was no insurance reimbursement for it. I
believe care even got in the way. Yet,
women are so reluctant to stop caring
that many heroic women continue trying
to bring care even to corporate
medicine.