We are heading towards another festive season at a dizzy speed. Just the other day we were mopping up after an exceptionally wet Easter weekend and now – still mopping up – we are right here, one month away from Christmas!
My goodness, did we have some rain this year or what?
Then again, maybe, if your roof has some seemingly unstoppable leaks, any rain, whether it is a shower or just a little drizzle, will always get your attention.
I have had so many specialists diagnosing the problem, suggesting a solution, fixing it, taking my money, leaving, getting called back to re-fix it at the next whiff of a frontal system, sometimes getting more money to throw more water-proofing material at the problem and still not fixing it really.
In fact, I am getting worried that all this added material being piled up on my roof might one day proof to be too heavy for the structure and my entire humble abode will sink into Mother Earth like the houses did in Carletonville in the Sixties and Seventies.
With the current witch-hunt for illegal dwellings by you-know-who, I should actually apply for amnesty for the amount that my roof has been raised (without plans), by layer upon layer of membrane glued onto it.
I am going to give it one more try. If that fails, I will sell everything and move to the driest of our arid regions where water doesn’t drip from your ceiling every time it rains more than ten drops or your neighbour decides to water his garden. Go where it leaks sand instead. Sand can be swept under a carpet; water not.
Okay, so I exaggerated a bit. It is not that bad. Anybody wants to make me an offer I cannot refuse? “What was that question sir?” “Oh, no, the price for the house does not include two pairs of gum-boots”.
And so it came to pass that Manto Msimang decided to make some time between the Southern Hemisphere Irresistible Tomato Soup conference (acronym not allowed) and the Young Emerging Beetroot Organisation (acronym YEBO) to announce the new and much debated pricing structure for medicine. How do you justify rigid price control in a free market system? I suppose only in Africa is that considered a possibility.
Within a week the newspapers started quoting some experts from the pharmaceutical, statistical and economic fields, all in agreement that the fees are totally inadequate. The one newspaper headed their article “The end of the era of the Corner Pharmacy”. Wow. Sitting on the corner as I do, that really hurt.
Risking my neck in debating this issue, let me offer only a few short pointers to illustrate aspects not normally evident to the public.
Government wants to assure two aspects with all this interference into medicine.
They want (1) more affordable medication (2) available to the people. What people? If you look at the 1994 Health Charter it becomes evident that previous disparities needed to be addressed. “The supply of affordable healthcare to the poorest of the poor” was mentioned.
How? Again, two aspects: Drop the price through absolute control and allow corporate supermarket groups to obtain pharmaceutical licenses – previously only granted to registered pharmacists. These chain stores were supposed to open dispensaries in the rural areas to reach the poorest of the poor.
Point is: It is not happening. It never will. All the corporate dispensaries are in affluent suburban areas where expensive chronic medication is dispensed. They want to make their shareholders happy. Not the poor.
The supply to the poor has in fact diminished to the extend that a lot of small towns and villages previously serviced by a rural chemist are now totally devoid of any pharmaceutical services due to the fact that the interference and control has forced the smaller chemists out of business and the newly announced fee structure is going to cause a large scale closure within a few months. The people living in these areas now have to travel to the nearest bigger town to get their medicine. Some saving to them!
Bottom line: I agree that medicine is expensive but I also know that it is not only the last link in the supply chain that is to be blamed. Why then cut it off?
If the traditional community pharmacy is not there anymore, you have two choices: Long queues at the supermarket where the pharmacist will not know the names of your children and the health status of your partner, or even longer queues at the state hospital where the pharmacist will not even care if you have any children.
God forbid.
Enough said. Quick commercial: With the exception of one, all the promised items in my PeeCee range are now available. I am quite proud and we are planning to go national in the New Year. The range is affordable and available. Without price control. “Eish, there he goes again!”
This time of the year a lot of people do a lot of travelling – if you are planning a trip somewhere, please read the following:
Just four hours of travel in a plane, train or car can triple your risk of potentially deadly blood clots in the legs. It is called deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The risk of DVT increases along with journey length. Those at greatest risk were people who travelled for more than 12 hours, people with certain kinds of inherited blood conditions, women taking oral contraceptives, and people taller than 2 meters, who are most affected by lack of leg room.
A traveller's risk of DVT can be reduced by moving the feet, walking around if possible, and drinking water or non-alcoholic beverages in order to prevent dehydration.
Lastly, I have seen some gripping evidence that one must control your weight but the following was too good to ignore. Only in America will they conduct research like this! Have a nice snigger: Losing weight can help you save money at the petrol pumps. That's the message from new research that found Americans' expanding waistlines are affecting fuel consumption and causing them to burn 4.3 billion more litres of fuel a year than they did in 1960. Based on recent average petrol prices, that means that Americans are spending about $2.2 billion (R15.6 billion) more a year to lug their extra kilograms around in their cars, the Associated Press reported. And the researchers noted that 4.3 billion litres is enough to fill almost 2 million cars with petrol for an entire year. – www.news24.com
That’s it for this month, have a wonderful summer, keep safe.
Pieter & Renette Naudé (and one of the kids currently visiting)
Monday, November 27, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Cholesterol - drug free??
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Dog food secrets revealed
"Give me ONE day and I'll give you
the happiest dog in town!"
Discover in One Day the amazing recipes that took John Miller 50 years to develop.
Your veterinarian will be asking you for your secrets.
50 years ago, a young dog-fancier, John Miller wanted to improve his dogs growth. After analysing commercial dog food formulas, he found they were all loaded with unhealthy chemicals.
John developed a better recipe himself and tried it on his own dogs... using healthier ingredients...
Click on:
Woof...
Monday, November 06, 2006
Health Warning! Ladies Take Note!
Serious Health Hazard:
Somebody kindly sent me this information and I felt it is so important that I adapted it somewhat and included in this letter for your attention. I cannot give credit to the original author because I do not know him/her but offer my thanks to that person for bringing this to everybody's attention.
HANDBAGS:
I never gave it a thought. Who would have thought?
Does anybody know how many women sit their handbags on public toilet floors - then go directly to their dining tables and set it on the table? Happens a lot!
It's not always the 'restaurant food' that causes stomach distress. Sometimes "what you don't know 'will' hurt you"!
Read on...
It's something just about every woman carries with them. While we may know what's inside our handbags, do you have any idea what's on the outside? You may think twice about where you put your handbag.
Women carry handbags everywhere; from the office to public toilets to the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught without their handbags, but did you ever stop to think about where your handbag goes during the day?
"I drive a school bus, so my handbag has been on the floor of the bus a lot," says one woman. "I put my bag on the floor of my car, and in toilets."
"I put my handbag in grocery shopping carts, on the floor of the toilet while changing a nappy," says another woman "and of course in my home which should be clean."
Most women told us they didn't stop to think about what was on the bottom of their handbag. Most said at home they usually set their handbags on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared.
Most of the ladies we talked to told us they wouldn't be surprised if their handbags were at least a little bit dirty. It turns out handbags are so surprisingly dirty, even the microbiologist who tested them was shocked.
Microbiologists agreed that nearly all handbags tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria. Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause serious skin infections, and salmonella and e-coli found on the handbags can be the cause of gastro-enteritis and could make people very sick.
In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella, and that's not the worst of it. There was fecal contamination on the handbags. Leather or vinyl handbags tended to be cleaner than cloth handbags, and lifestyle seemed to play a role.
People with kids tended to have dirtier handbags than those without, with one exception. The handbag of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of the worst contaminations of all. Some type of feces, or possibly vomit.
So the moral of this story - your handbag won't kill you, but it does have the potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places where you eat.
Use hooks to hang your handbag at home and in toilets, and don't put it on your desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen countertop.
Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a pair of shoes. "If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your countertops, that's the same thing you're doing when you put your handbag on the countertops" - your handbag has gone where individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc!
Do you really want to bring that home with you?
Somebody kindly sent me this information and I felt it is so important that I adapted it somewhat and included in this letter for your attention. I cannot give credit to the original author because I do not know him/her but offer my thanks to that person for bringing this to everybody's attention.
HANDBAGS:
I never gave it a thought. Who would have thought?
Does anybody know how many women sit their handbags on public toilet floors - then go directly to their dining tables and set it on the table? Happens a lot!
It's not always the 'restaurant food' that causes stomach distress. Sometimes "what you don't know 'will' hurt you"!
Read on...
It's something just about every woman carries with them. While we may know what's inside our handbags, do you have any idea what's on the outside? You may think twice about where you put your handbag.
Women carry handbags everywhere; from the office to public toilets to the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught without their handbags, but did you ever stop to think about where your handbag goes during the day?
"I drive a school bus, so my handbag has been on the floor of the bus a lot," says one woman. "I put my bag on the floor of my car, and in toilets."
"I put my handbag in grocery shopping carts, on the floor of the toilet while changing a nappy," says another woman "and of course in my home which should be clean."
Most women told us they didn't stop to think about what was on the bottom of their handbag. Most said at home they usually set their handbags on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared.
Most of the ladies we talked to told us they wouldn't be surprised if their handbags were at least a little bit dirty. It turns out handbags are so surprisingly dirty, even the microbiologist who tested them was shocked.
Microbiologists agreed that nearly all handbags tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria. Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause serious skin infections, and salmonella and e-coli found on the handbags can be the cause of gastro-enteritis and could make people very sick.
In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella, and that's not the worst of it. There was fecal contamination on the handbags. Leather or vinyl handbags tended to be cleaner than cloth handbags, and lifestyle seemed to play a role.
People with kids tended to have dirtier handbags than those without, with one exception. The handbag of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of the worst contaminations of all. Some type of feces, or possibly vomit.
So the moral of this story - your handbag won't kill you, but it does have the potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places where you eat.
Use hooks to hang your handbag at home and in toilets, and don't put it on your desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen countertop.
Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a pair of shoes. "If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your countertops, that's the same thing you're doing when you put your handbag on the countertops" - your handbag has gone where individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc!
Do you really want to bring that home with you?
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Newsletter October 2006
Quick rundown why everybody should send me money NOW: October is not my top money-saving month. So many days to remember, so many people that expects more than morsels to celebrate with anything ranging from chocolate-cake and tea, to merlot and brie.
We had in quick succession; 8th - my sister’s birthday, 17th - our anniversary (25 nogal!), 20th - my brother-in-law’s birthday, 27th - my wife Renette’s birthday (a bit more than 25 nogal!), 27th - the pharmacy’s birthday (58 years of which we had the joy of the previous 9), and then the month will be over.
There is an old saying in Afrikaans: “Oktober, die mooiste, mooiste maand.” It seems to be quite true. It is indeed a beautiful month. Just look at who shares birthdays in October:
Sting, Mahatma Gandhi, Kate Winslet, Brit Ekland, Chevy Chase, Paul Simon, Cliff Richard, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Angela Lansbury, Evel Knievel (on the 17th nogal), Alfred Nobel, and on the 27th – John Cleese for humor, Theodore Roosevelt for insight and Captain James Cook for bravery.
The fact that I know most of these names so well gives my age away or says a lot about the days when we were still taught some sort of history.
Enough of the old: Now for some exciting current news:
Thank you. Now let’s move onto some interesting medical snippets picked up recently. (Courtesy of 24.com)
Fat may shield cancer
Fatty tissue may hinder the body's ability to destroy cells that can cause cancer, suggests a
It has long been known that overweight people are at increased risk of certain types of cancer, but scientists have been trying to understand the reasons why and whether losing weight can help reduce cancer risk or offer any benefits after a tumour has formed.
Based on their findings in mice, the
Almonds could help you lose weight
A handful of almonds, a rich source of flavonoid antioxidants, vitamin E and magnesium, may enhance the feeling of fullness in people and aid weight management, suggests a new study.
Satiety has been called the 'Holy Grail of nutrition' and is seen as a key target in the battle against obesity, which is taking a heavy toll around the globe. More than 29% of South African men and 56% of South African women are currently classified as overweight or obese, according to the latest statistics by the Medical Research Council of South Africa. Foods marketed for satiety enhance feelings of fullness after eating, acting as a boost to a person's will power. People found their daily almond snack to be very filling, and so they naturally compensated in their caloric intake at other times of the day. In other words, almond consumption could displace other foods from the diet, leading to a more stable weight.
Cholesterol drugs help smokers
The millions of people who take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may have another reason to cheer: These medications may also help boost the lung health of smokers and former smokers.
And a second study reported at the
Cell phones sabotaging sperm
Heavy cell phone use can harm a man's sperm count and quality, says a study by researchers in the
They tracked 364 men being evaluated for infertility. The men were divided into three groups, based on their sperm count.
Among men whose sperm counts were within the normal range, those who used a cell phone for more than four hours a day produced an average of 66 million sperm a day, 23 percent less than men in the same group who never used cell phones.
(Moral of the story? Never make a date with your cell phone)
Some interesting facts about water
Only 1,1% of the water on earth is suitable for drinking.
Our bodies consist of 55 – 75% water.
Depression and fatigue are often symptoms of dehydration.
It is healthy to drink water with meals, as it aids the process of digestion.
The best way of getting rid of water retention is to drink a lot of water.
Water allows the body to metabolise fats more efficiently.
Good water intake prevents the skin from sagging.
Water is the main food the body needs.
The thirst reflex only appears when our bodies are already dehydrated.
Children dehydrate more quickly than adults do, and a survey revealed that 65% of schoolchildren drank too little water.
A 2% reduction of water levels in the body can lead to a 20% decrease in mental and physical performance.
Dehydration may induce contractions in pregnant women.
And now for a quick commercial: My own range called PeeCee:
Judging only from sales in our own shop, it is going to be a hit. The Bath Salts are flying, the Shaving Crème is quite popular, the Bath Oil is a winner and the Air & Fabric Spray is still our best seller! Soon we will have a Shower Gel and an After Sun Soothing Spray as well as our own branded Palm Oil Soap.
Please support us in the process of branding this range by buying the products. They are good, they are affordable, and they are proudly local!
One day you can brag to your friends that you were using these products when they were still unknown and made in a little pharmacy on the coast!
Have to love and leave you now, gotta shake up some more salts!
Greetings from around the Anniversary Cake,
Pieter and Renette Naudé
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