I decided to start the chiropracticlive forum in 2005 to expose the outrageous behaviour of GCC officers and give chiropractors a chance to speak out. General apathy and fear meant the chiropractic profession did not take advantage of the opportunity. This was one of the first e-mails I was sent from one of the people I admire most in the chiropractic profession Tony Gilmore a former head of McTimoney School and part of the original regulation steering group. Anyone who says I am anti MacTimoney is wrong. However the McT leadership just like the BCAs are mainly interested in feathering their own nests rather than looking at the profession as a whole.
Tony warned me of what lay ahead and he has given me permission to post his e-mail.
Richard – thanks very much for the round robin on the goings on in the BCA. You may not be aware but I resigned from the GCC and the MCA in total disgust last October after more than enough nonsense from both. I was loathe to do so, having hung in there during the darkest times when the McT group was being attacked by everyone or so it seemed at times! Having been one of the McT team that decided finally to bury the hatchet and try and unite so that the profession could get some regulation I was dismayed when the GCC refused to have anything to do with animal chiropractic ( my own particular baby ). They went so far as to refuse registration to my partner Lynda Clark who had put 25 years into teaching, examining and administration because she only treated animals ( she had given up her human practice some years previously and was therefore deemed unacceptable by the GCC ).
That was bad enough, but since I did treat enough people to be registered and I did join the register hoping against hope that the chiropractic profession would finally grow up. Alas it was not to be. I began to hear tales from colleagues who, for one reason or another, had not registered, that made me wonder what my registration fee was being spent on. Private investigators employed by the GCC were used to trap some of these people and they were being prosecuted. One spent several hours in a cell in North Wales for ticking the wrong box on an insurance claim. My own view is that these tactics are both unnecessary and unpleasant.
However the GCC has briefed both the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Insurance Companies on the Chiropractors Act and is actively assisting in these actions. Wouldn’t a warning letter save a lot of trouble and unnecessary stress? In one case a practitioner, in the middle of chemo for Lupus had to suffer the strain of a police interview as a result of a complaint and entrapment from a neighbouring chiropractor. The GCC claims that the Act is ‘to protect the public’ but anyone who has any knowledge of the development of the professions knows that the primary protectees are the professionals themselves. I got fed up with the whole sorry business and resigned from the GCC and all that on 1 October 2004 since when my stress levels have been much better.
I am well aware that one can’t change anything from the outside, life is short, too short to be involved in the uphill struggle of trying to implement a karmic upgrade to people who seem determined to remain in the stone age. It is, as they say, like teaching a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. So I hope your fight is successful and if it tickles your celtic spirit and blows your kilt up then have at it! Your sanity and even handedness are one of the better memories of recent years for both of us. But we’ve left the chiropractic profession to people who have the energy for the fight and view it from the sidelines for as long a the GCC will let us.What’s interesting is that the current GCC witchhunt almost mirrors that which the medical profession pursued against the chiropractor in the US in the early 20th century. Plus ca change… Stay in touch – it good to know there’s a voice of sanity in the bedlam of bureaucracy and the way the suits control us is by controlling our information stream. We have a similar problem in the MCA and the McTimoney College but that’s another story.
Tony Gilmore
