How Apple and the Prince of Wales Are Reinventing Healthcare

Earlier this year, Apple announced that it would be opening “Wellness” centres called AC Wellness for its employees. As a model of integrative health, AC Wellness would focus on more exercise coaches, nutritionists, care navigators and nurses than on doctors.

AC Wellness would apply more practitioners in alternative and functional medicine and would even incorporate a “wellness lead”. This is a continuation of a trend in which pop-in wellness clinics have become popular over the last several years and the increasing influence of alternative medicine in the US. However, on the other side of the continent, the HRH The Prince of Wales had launched a Health and Wellness Centre at the Dumfries House in Scotland last summer.

"The state of our health reflects the food we eat, the exercise we take, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the quality of our housing and sanitation. I believe it also extends to our social needs and circumstances—the need to belong to a community, the need for meaningful work and daily purpose. The need in our lives for dignity and kindness, for self-respect, for hope, and, about all, for harmony and, dare I say it, beauty. It encompasses the power of art, the healing properties of loving human relationships and the role of the human spirit. Human health is a sum of all these parts."
- HRH Prince Charles

A longtime supporter of an integrative model of healthcare, Prince Charles had launched the Dumfries House Health and Wellness Centre to focus on holistic health in which he won the backing of the National Health Service (NHS). The Dumfries House was formerly a mansion located in Ayrshire, Scotland in which the Prince had saved from bankruptcy 10 years ago after he had put up £20 million from his own investment to convert the stately home into a non-profit that helps the local community in training programmes, and development of arts, crafts and sustainable agriculture. The Health and Wellness Centre offers complementary therapies, such as homeopathy, reflexology and acupuncture, in addition to fitness and education programmes.
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Harmony: A New Way of Looking At Our World is the 2010 book Prince Charles had co-authored with Tony Juniper and Ian Skelly, and addresses architecture and planning, agriculture, education, the arts, healthcare, society and economy, which have all suffered as a result of our disconnect from Nature.

Prince Charles has also been a long-time advocate of environmental protections, during a time of industrialisation when many corporations were unaware of the damages they were inflicting on our ecosystem. Although there has been some advances in regards to bioremediation of radioactive waste in the sea using bacteria such as deinococcus radiodurans, which has the ability to degrade the harmful radioactive waste by converting it to less harmful compounds, the oceans have become a dumping ground for plastic waste which affects many animals, and inevitably changing our ecosystem through destruction of many wildlife that are dependent on the sea.

Over the past week, I have compiled a short video on the Prince of Wales and his 30+ year quest to bring awareness and initiative to nations around the world regarding the important actions we must all take in order to preserve the beauty of our planet. Whereas politicians have oftentimes been slow to action, and quick to endorse harmful practices under the guise of safety regulations, the British monarchy has been at the forefront of the environmental and healthcare revolution.
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click to play The Architects of Our Planet ​https://vimeo.com/297250475




​By Sierra Choi