A breath of fresh air for patients
DOING HER DUTY: Nurse Jill McGowan is spreading the Buteyko word. A NURSE who treated New York’s 9/11 firefighters with a revolutionary no-medicine approach has been using her skills to help Inverclyde’s asthma sufferers.Jill McGowan, 51, a former nursing lecturer at
Inverclyde Nursing College, used her expertise in a breathing technique called Buteyko to treat New York firefighters whose lungs were damaged in the Twin Towers blaze.Her mastery of Buteyko is now being taught to a group of Inverclyde’s asthma sufferers.
Jill says the skills she teaches can transform the lives of sufferers, helping people with asthma and other chronic breathing problems cope with their condition without the use of drugs.
Jill has asthma herself and sees it as her duty to teach as many people as she can about Buteyko.
She said: “I’ve got no funding at all. I don’t get paid for doing this, but to me it’s political, there are people who need Buteyko.
“I’m a nurse. I’ve got a code of conduct which says if I know of anything that’s available to assist someone I should make it available.
“When you see a human being recovering it makes the hairs on your arms stand on end.”
Jill is so committed to getting Buteyko recognised and accepted by the NHS that she sold her house and car to fund her own clinical trial to prove it works.
At the moment she provides the service to the NHS free of charge, so patients don’t have to foot the bill.
She thinks the only thing that prevents Buteyko being adopted by the NHS are drug companies who have an interest in keeping asthma sufferers on medication.
Jill’s hope is her clinical trial and other studies in Australia and New Zealand could soon turn the tide and see Buteyko accepted by UK health chiefs.