Hey Y'all,
I wanted to see if I could get your quick help. I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a movement of citizens inspired by the presidential campaign who are now submitting ideas for how they think the Obama Administration should change America. It's called "Ideas for Change in America."
I've submitted an idea and wanted to see if you could quickly vote for it. The title is: Therapeutic Massage Service Corps/Touch Care for All. You can read and vote for the idea by clicking on the following link:
The top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, and more than a dozen leading nonprofits after the Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy. In brief, my idea is:
An initiative to fund skilled appropriate touch in all aspects of health care: preventative, skilled care(pre/post natal,homeless, infants,children, teens, orthopedic, psych., geriatric, diabetic, alzheimers, parkinson's) palliative, end-of-life care, survivor care. trauma, cancer, cardiac...every need addressed every burden of care level, every facility and new programs to help the aged.
Did you know that years ago nurses gave their pt's. a massage every day? first with alcohol then with lotion? ask an old nurse they'll tell you it eased the pt's suffering and they required less drugs.
That sort of therapeutic touch is absent in most care facilities today. Nurses don't have time, Medicare doesn't allow therapist's the time, insurance won't pay usually.
Where do you get the benefit of appropriate massage care? Maybe when you get into hospice, if there is a massage volunteer, or maybe not ever...help millions of suffering elderly receive regular skilled touch with well trained massage therapists. Then let's partner with schools and facilities to begin simple hand or foot massage training to help the burgeoning population of diabetic conditions in our nation. The research is there that says massage helps all conditions by reducing the seat of disease, stress. Now is the time to wrestle back quality in healthcare, not status quo Medi-crap. Down with drugs, up with touch!
Thanks for the support,
jon sullivan, LMT, Austin TX
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Thanks for being part of the moment for change in America. And good luck!
- The Change.org Team