Music is drifting out of one of the anterooms on the haematology unit at University College London Hospital (UCLH). The piece is called Sacred Spirit, a rousing Native American drum song. Inside, a patient lies with her eyes closed, while a hospital staff member, Angie Buxton-King, stands by her bed, holding her hands three inches above the woman’s body and saying nothing. In the corridor, doctors and nurses pass by without so much as a glance.
Sound a little unusual? It should. The UCLH haematology unit claims that Buxton-King and her two colleagues are the only paid spiritual healers to work in an NHS hospital ward. Buxton-King joined the UCLH haematology unit, which treats patients with leukaemia, as well as lymphomas, myelomas and sickle-cell disease, in 1999 as an unpaid volunteer, working one day a week. Since 2001 she has a been fully-paid, part-time staff member, who manages a team of six complementary therapists, as well as treating about ten patients a week.
A fierce debate over complementary therapies on the NHS erupted last May: 13 of Britain’s most senior medical experts, including Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, wrote to hospitals to urge staff not to spend money on unproven treatments. Yet Buxton-King’s mission is to make spiritual healing available to NHS cancer patients. So how did she convince UCLH to take her on, and why does she believe that her therapy is of benefit to patients? Buxton-King’s story begins with the kind of news that every parent dreads. In 1995, acute myeloid leukaemia, a cancer that affects blood-producing cells in the bone marrow, was diagnosed in her son Sam, 7, and he was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital. By then, Buxton-King, a full-time mother to Sam and his older brother Nick, then 12, had developed an interest in spiritual healing.
“My mother was told that she had ovarian cancer in 1988,” she says. “We sought out alternative treatments and I sat in on her first healing session. When I mentioned that my hands felt hot as the treatment was taking place, the healer told me it was a sign that I could work with energy healing myself.”
Her mother died the same year but Buxton-King chose to continue attending healing practice groups. Seven years later, with Sam ill, she decided to train for membership of the National Federation of Spiritual Healers (NFSH).
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“When Sam’s chemotherapy started, I began doing spiritual healing sessions with him. Just for 15 minutes each night as he didn’t want to lie still for too long. As the chemo wore on, while other children on the ward lay in bed drained and nauseous, Sam was up and playing.
“Of course, I hoped that healing would form part of the treatment that would cure Sam. That didn’t happen, but he was playing football in the garden the day before he died, in 1998. He had swum with dolphins a month before. Many children with leukaemia can’t remain active like that. I’m certain that healing made Sam’s journey so much more bearable.” That experience gave her a mission. She would continue with the NFSH training, qualifying as a member in
2001. But before that, in 1999, determined that other cancer patients should have access to spiritual healing, she started offering her services to hospitals. To her surprise, the UCLH said yes, but only if she’d work for free. “Of course, there was scepticism among some of the doctors,” she says. “But the consultants listened to feedback from patients who said they were sleeping better. They also saw other benefits that healing can bring, such as help with pain management.”
A typical spiritual healing session at the UCLH unit lasts 30 minutes. The healer will work down the body, touching it in key places — the head, the stomach, the feet — and then back up, holding her hands above the body. By 2001 patient demand for spiritual healing was such that Buxton-King was asked to work three days a week. Now she has brought in two more spiritual healers, as well as a counsellor and two aromatherapists/reflexologists.
Prince Aidoo, 18, has acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and a bone marrow transplant last month. Since he came to the ward in January, he has been seeing Graham King, one of the healers on Buxton-King’s team. “I find chemotherapy so draining,” says Aidoo, “but during a healing session I can feel energy rushing through my body. I feel physically better for it. Spiritual healing is part of the package that is making me better.”
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Not all patients opt for the treatments but Buxton-King estimates that 80 per cent of those on the ward see at least one therapist regularly.
According to Professor Anthony Goldstone, a consultant at the UCLH haematology unit, the treatment Buxton-King provides is of particular value on a ward where stays are often long (typically four to eight weeks) and difficult: “Patients on a ward such as this have extraordinary emotional needs. They tell us that healing, and the other complementary therapies, put them in a better mental state and make them more able to face up to yet another needle, or another round of treatment-related nausea. Patients have told us that they experience less pain, or fewer side-effects from drugs, that they’re able to sleep better. These are anecdotal impressions, not measurements. But they’re valuable.”
But what about the criticisms of high-profile sceptics such as Professor Ernst? “We’ve never claimed that we get better technical patient outcomes because of this,” says Professor Goldstone. “And no doubt some staff think this is all mumbo-jumbo. But patients say their journey through treatment has been made easier.”
Buxton-King is determined that the model established at UCLH should roll out across the NHS. Funding, she says, is the issue: “It costs £5,000 a year to fund one therapist for one day a week. Our charity, the Sam Buxton Sunflower Healing Trust, aims to raise money to extend our work here. Ultimately, we want to fund therapists across the NHS.”
It’s impossible to miss the air of missionary zeal that surrounds Buxton-King. Her son Sam’s illness prompted her to explore spiritual healing, but isn’t every day on the haematology unit a painful revisiting of that tragedy? “Without a doubt, my experience with Sam spurs me on. And yes, it’s difficult sometimes. But also immensely rewarding.”
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To raise money for the Sam Buxton Sunflower Healing Trust, the Sunflower Jam, an evening of rock’n’roll at the Porchester Hall, London W2, is being held on Thursday; tickets £250. Visit www.thesunflowerjam.com for details
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
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What is it? Spiritual healers say that they call on healing energy from within people or non-worldly entities. It’s an ancient practice and forms of spiritual healing can be found in most cultures.
Good for A broad range of ailments but, in particular, it claims to help with the speed of recovery from serious illness and from chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Contact The National Federation of Spiritual Healers, 0845 1232767, or visit www.nfsh.org.uk. Members have undertaken a two-year NFSH-licensed healing course.
WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE? DR TOBY MURCOTT
Angie Buxton-King’s belief that each of us is surrounded by an energy field into which she can channel energy has no support in conventional science. But there is evidence that this therapy can help patients with pain relief.
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In a 2004 study of 35 cancer patients, published in the European Journal of Oncology Nursing, subjects showed significant improvement in pain and discomfort, and improvement in depression and anxiety, after energy healing.
Dr Toby Murcott is a former BBC science correspondent