Government looks at funding alternative health therapies

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

The rising number of people who use alternative healthcare have been given the prospect of greater state funding.

A committee advising Health Minister Annette King on complementary and alternative healthcare has recommended looking at publicly funding therapies and medicines.

But they would have to be proven to be safe, effective and cost-effective.

There are more than 70 complementary and alternative therapies, ranging from naturopathy to aromatherapy. The Accident Compensation Corporation already provides funding for acupuncture.

Ms King, who released the committee's report yesterday, said she was considering its proposals and had asked the ministry to look at how they could help improve people's health.

Nearly one in four people visited an alternative health practitioner in the previous year, a survey in 2002-2003 found.

The committee's chairwoman, Professor Peggy Koopman-Boyden, of Waikato University, said an increasing number of people were interested in complementary and alternative approaches to healthcare.

"That is partly a critique of the current medical profession. It is also an illustration of the impact of a large number of people currently being in their 50s and 60s - the baby boomers, who don't ever want to age.

"They take herbal medicines and Chinese medicines and massage and so on. This is worldwide."

She said evidence for the safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of alternative healthcare was limited and her committee recommended the ministry encourage funding bodies to facilitate more research.

Another proposal was to introduce statutory regulation of alternative therapies which carried higher risks because they were invasive, such as acupuncture, but to leave lower-risk ones such as reflexology to regulate themselves through their professional organisations.

The Register of Acupuncturists has long sought statutory regulation, as have several other groups of alternative practitioners.

Commentators approached by the Herald yesterday had not read the report, but generally supported its recommendation on public funding.

Patrick Fahy, chief executive of the Charter of Health Practitioners, an umbrella group for alternative practitioners, said it might be a step forward.

"But if they are talking about scientific [proof] I have a major problem with that terminology."

Professor Jim Mann, an Otago University medical expert who is critical of many dietary supplements, said he supported public funding for alternative medicines on the basis proposed. "But I can't think of many that have been shown in appropriate clinical trials to be beneficial."

Medical Association chairwoman Dr Tricia Briscoe said proven treatments should be treated the same, whether alternative or mainstream.

Alternative healthcare

* The Ministry of Health surveyed 12,000 adults in 2002-2003.

* 23.4 per cent said they had visited an alternative healthcare practitioner in the previous year.

* 6.1 per cent saw a chiropractor.

* 2.6 per cent saw an acupuncturist.

* 1.8 per cent saw a herbalist.