Whanganui DHB alternative therapies trial courageous

Warm, fuzzy media headlines are the order of the day when Police dogs or All Blacks visit hospital patients. Try introducing a trial of alternative therapies like Whanganui District Health Board is doing and the headlines become accusatory and dismissive.

A range of therapies including Reiki, Christian prayer, Maori healing and massage will be on offer to Whanganui hospital staff over a three-month period.   As far as I know, none of these therapies are claiming to cure disease or mend broken bones.
Despite that two District Health Board members have deemed the interventions hocus pocus or witchcraft.   Their preference is for more effort to go into improving existing evidence based medicine, which has been a mainstay of the bio-medical model for the last few decades.   An effort to ensure, as far as possible, that medical interventions do no harm. Read more
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The Rev. Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.

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News category: Analysis and Comment.

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