Go to the doctor? Never!

While her friends pop endless pills, a defiant Liz Hodgkinson, 70, insists going to see your GP can do more harm than good

Because I am old — or, at 70, what the medical profession considers old — I am constantly bombarded with screening kits and invitations to go for this or that expensive health test.

I also regularly receive texts and emails from my local doctor’s practice for various annual tests, plus the flu vaccine and checks on my cholesterol levels. and they don’t just come from the NHs. I also receive letters from private health companies inviting me to go for an ‘essential’ health check.

and do you know what? I ignore them all. The bowel cancer kits I receive from time to time go straight into the bin, and I have never in my life had a mammogram or smear test, even though I am always being coerced or even bullied into making an appointment to do so.

I have made a unilateral stand against all the blandishments.

although most GP surgeries are full of old people, you will not find me among the patients drooling there. In the nearly seven years I have lived in Oxford, I have been to the doctor precisely twice: once for a referral and once for antibiotics for an ear infection.

Before I lived in Oxford, I had been registered with a London GP since the late eighties. The only time I went to see her was to check whether she could help with the tinnitus that had been plaguing me.

she sent me for whole- head X-rays, lights were shone in my ears, and nobody could find anything wrong. although as a result of tinnitus my hearing is gradually deteriorating, there is no effective treatment or cure for this persistent pestilential ringing in the ears.

so for the one annoying, though not life-threatening, condition that I suffer from, there is no medical treatment that can make a difference.

Indeed, I went so rarely to the GP that I was struck off for nonattendance. You would imagine that doctors might like me, as I take up so little of their valuable time. But no. It seems you have to make regular visits to remain on their list, even if there is nothing wrong with you.

Because I never go to the doctor, I am not on medication of any kind.

SOam I being completely irresponsible, blithely ignoring health advice from every quarter to go for checks and tests? I am told I should have a diabetes check, an osteoporosis check, that I should have my blood pressure regularly monitored and my eyes tested for cataracts and macular degeneration. catch it early, so the mantra goes, and you increase your chances of zapping or managing your condition.

am I decreasing my chances of a long life, just because I am not on buckets of pills? am I storing up trouble for myself in future because it never even occurs to me to maintain regular contact with my GP? To tell you the truth, I don’t even know who he or she is.

all I can say is, so far so good. To the best of my knowledge, I am not suffering from any medical condition, and I believe that at least part of the reason for this is my philosophy of not going looking for illness and not taking medication ‘in case’ — which is how modern prescribing is going.

Thousands, if not millions, of over55s are prescribed statins just in case their cholesterol levels might rise in future. In fact, some doctors have urged that everybody, including children, should be put on statins to keep their cholesterol levels low.

most of my over-60 friends are on the blasted things, but say they don’t know why — their doctor recommended them.

When any of them come to stay, they bring out their compartmentalised pill cases, or pill organisers as they are called — taking these tablets has become a lengthy morning and evening ritual for them.

sometimes their medications include vitamins, and I have to say I don’t take any of those either — never mind that pharmacies and health food shops are full of supplements to treat or ‘ help’ a vast range of conditions.

It seems that I have become a rare statistic.

The latest figures show that 20 per cent of the over-70s take five or more different drugs a day, and most elderly patients have no idea why they are on so many of them.

Prescriptions of all kinds now cost the NHs £15 billion a year.

You might imagine that, with a sum like this, the NHs would want to cut its drug bill. But no.

One of the main reasons people my age are prescribed so many pills is that, since 2004, doctors’ pay has been linked to managing certain conditions, and they are judged on the number of patients they put on tablets.

That is why doctors don’t like me — I am reducing their salary. most of my friends are horrified when I tell them I never go for medical tests or checks, and say they would not dare to be as blasé about their health as I apparently am about mine.

although unusual in my attitude, I am not quite a lone voice in the wilderness. Glasgow GP Dr margaret mccartney, author of the book The Patient Paradox: Why sexed-up medicine Is Bad For Your Health, says many elderly people feel pressurised into going on tablets.

she believes patients have been turned into customers, with waiting rooms jammed up with healthy people who are lured into having their blood pressure taken and undergoing cholesterol and smear tests, and bowel and breast cancer screening.

mostly, there will be nothing wrong with them. and medical charities, she argues, are using dodgy PR and unreliable statistics to ‘ raise awareness’ when such awareness is rarely necessary.

The current obsession with screening swallows up not just NHs time but also the money of healthy people who pay thousands to private companies for tests they simply don’t need. ‘There is far too much testing of well people,’ Dr mccartney says.

In time, it’s true, I might well become ill and need a battalion of medical treatments.

But until that day comes, I shall continue to steer clear of doctors and expensive clinics, and adhere to the ancient, non-pharmaceutical advice for keeping well: ‘Dr Diet, Dr Quiet and Dr merryman.’

These lifestyle choices, plus healthy ( vegetarian) eating, a rigorous gym routine, and never giving my health a moment’s thought, keep me fitter and younger, I am sure, than all the heavy artillery that Big Pharma can offer. A vErsioN of this article first appeared in the Lady.