6TH International Congress on Technology - Engineering - Kuala Lumpur3 - Malaysia (2018-07-19)

How ‘integrative Medicine’ Is Filling Some Of The Gaps In Access To Complementary Holistic Healthcare, For Low-income Australians

Objective: This paper aims to discuss the relevance of ‘Integrative Medicine’ (IM) for low-income health consumers in Australia, who desire complementary/alternative treatments. Scope: The paper relies on anthropological research, to describe IM as a partial social-cultural solution to the schism between biomedical and holistic perspectives of healing. Summary: Recent research, on which this paper is based, took place in a group of small rural communities in Victoria, Australia, that are relatively proximal to Melbourne city. The research incorporated a substantial anthropology fieldwork component, and unearthed a wide range of complementary and alternative, or traditional, holistic (CATH) styles of healing, that were in common and persistent use among low-income local residents. Nevertheless, lack of disposable income prevented most research participants from consulting professional naturopaths, Chinese medicine practitioners, homeopaths, massage therapists, and the like, on account of the prohibitive cost to them of such consultations. In contrast, throughout Australia, free biomedical healthcare is subsidised by both federal and state governments, in a funded ‘mainstream’ health system that supports health provision by medical doctors and related institutions, and providers of specific types of allied healthcare such as psychology. A number of consumers who strongly wished to use CATH medicine and to see professional CATH providers, but were unable to do so due to unaffordability, turned instead to IM, which, being provided by medical doctors with an interest in holistic forms of healthcare, receives partial support through government funds. Significance: IM was found to represent a “middle ground” for poorer consumers looking for professional CATH treatments. IM offers a degree of both stylistic interest and philosophical contiguity, in terms of encompassing preferred holistic paradigms of healing and modes of treatment, albeit not without complications due to its political ramifications. Conclusions: Offering satisfaction to a limited range of health consumers, including some of those who are unable to afford CATH professional consultations, IM is challenged in Australia by the biomedical system, professional bodies and legal sanctions that limit the range of practices and healing claims allowable by its biomedically-trained practitioners. Keywords: Australia; Biomedicine Policy; Complementary, Alternative, Traditional and Holistic (CATH) Healing; Healthcare Systems; Integrative Medicine (IM).
Tass Holmes