INTERCOLLEGE in Limassol may soon become the first mainstream further education institution to offer diploma courses in alternative medicine.
The courses in natural therapies will include homeopathy, naturopathy and acupuncture and will be run in cooperation with the Limassol-based Neo-Hippocrates School of Natural Therapies, which has been trying to establish a legislative framework for the practice of natural therapies in Cyprus since 1990.
Provided there is enough interest in the courses to make it economically viable for Intercollege to run them, classes may start as soon as the end of April. If not, organisers hope to start in September
For Professor Andreas Nicolaou, who teaches at the Neo-Hippocrates School and is the liaison with Intercollege for the project, this potential to upgrade the status of natural therapies is long overdue.
“For a long time there was no progress towards getting natural therapies recognised in Cyprus as valid forms of health treatment,“ he said.
“The Medical Commission did not want this. In Cyprus it is a little different in comparison to other European countries. Here, they think everyone who is not a medical doctor is a charlatan,” he said.
The current plan is for the theoretical aspects of the courses to be taught at the Limassol branch of Intercollege whilst the practical classes are to be held at the Neo-Hippocrates school. Upon completion of the course, Intercollege will issue a certificate of attendance whilst the actual Diploma itself is to be issued by the UK-based College of Naturopathic Medicine.
Under the plans, full three-year diploma courses are eventually – once Intercollege is assured of sufficient demand for each course – to be offered in naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, natural nutritional therapy, herbal medicine and complementary therapy. One year courses are to be offered in reflexology, anatomy and physiology, aromatherapy and holistic massage.
Coincidently, the legal status of alternative therapies has been scheduled to be debated in Parliament next week for the first time. In Nicolaou’s estimation, however, the process of providing a legislative framework for natural therapies in Cyprus will likely still take a considerable time, maybe up to four years. Cyprus still does not have any formal legal framework regulating the field, although the Neo-Hippocrates school is, through cooperative agreements with international regulatory bodies, recognised as a certified training provider for a variety of natural therapies.
The approach taken by western medicine is fundamentally different at the outset from that assumed by conventional medicine, and it is from these differences that the difficulties in the relationship between them stems, explained Nicoalou.
“Most conventional therapy involves the use of synthetic drugs which are often very complicated and manufactured to a high level of subtlety,” he said. Whilst actively recommending the use of such an approach in extreme circumstances, such as cancer or diabetes, Nicolaou cautioned that it may well be pernicious to use it in a prolonged fashion or as an everyday approach to health maintenance.
“The World Health Organisation is now suggesting that people should get back to complementary medicine, precisely because it does not have so many side-effects or contraindications,” said Nicolaou.
The disciplines on which many natural therapies are based are many thousands of years old, such as T.C.M. (traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture) and Ayurveda (the traditional Indian healing system). It is for this reason that the use of such methodologies is not a new direction but, rather, a return to old and established approaches.
“We help people to stay away of the use of drugs, or not to use a lot,” said Nicolaou of the value of including natural therapies as a viable alternative to conventional medicine.
