I thought that was the parent's point -- Western medicine has done superb work for acute diseases and injuries, but doesn't have solutions yet, and may not even have the right approach, for chronic ones.
A lot of Western treatments for chronic conditions aren't that great, but is there anything that's been proven better? It's not exceptionally pleasant for people with sleep apnea to have to wear masks and have pressurized air blown into their breathing passages at night, but at least they get some real sleep. Living with diabetes still sucks, but wouldn't it suck more without the treatments scientific medicine has developed?
[1] "Western medicine" is really a bad name for it. My specific condition was first discovered by a Japanese doctor, hence the name Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
Of course, that's not going to accomplish anything if my immune system has decided to destroy my thyroid gland, or if a stray gamma ray or two has turned a lump of otherwise-useful tissue into a malignant tumor, or if my breathing passages are shaped in just the right way to obstruct my breathing at night.