Andrea's Blog

February 23, 2010

Regulation Denouement...for now!

I have been getting some good feedback on this Regulation series. It is meant to be an exchange and I hope this continues with such good engagement.

First of all, I would like to let you all know that the TC-CHO has its website operating now. You can find it at collegeofhomeopaths.on.ca. There you will find the basics you require to research regulation, look up the legislation that is guiding this process,find answers to general questions and to sign up for information alerts. You can also see the new logo for the College of Homeopaths of Ontario that was approved at the last Council meeting. It looks good!

Secondly, it was pointed out to me by a good homeopath friend that perhaps I sound too cynical about the government process in Part Three, perhaps adding to the helplessness that we all sometimes feel around this process. That was certainly not my intention but I can understand this criticism too. This is exactly how I felt when I was working for the TC-CHO and I am actually trying to enlighten everyone on the process AS IT TRULY IS.

Perhaps my emphasis on what we CAN do hasn’t been clearly enough stated: attend Council meetings! Write letters in response to what you hear in a Council meeting if something isn’t clear to you, or you have a comment. Ask questions of people who have some objective sense of what is going on. Read online about regulation and learn about the RHPA, the Homeopathy Act of 2007 and ask the College of Homeopaths for a copy of the by-laws pertaining to the TC-CHO (they are obligated to give you a copy if you request it). Talk to, and motivate, each other to stay informed! These are ways we can all be proactive. It is important to have communication from a non-governmental source too, outside of the website or email which is what I am attempting to do; to give the observer’s view and report on the TC-CHO activities.

Thirdly, nothing has happened with the TC-CHO that affects any of us right now. You may continue to study, enrol in the school of your choice, practice and give workshops as always...nothing has changed and will not be changing for a while. The first thing that will change will be registration of homeopaths for membership in the College. This probably won’t happen until 2012 or later as there is a lot to figure out regarding who to register and how many in Ontario, who qualifies to be a member, what are the fees, how to register the membership (i.e. grandfathering, student membership, recent grads etc), quality assurance, competencies, educational standards etc. The website says registration will happen in 2012. We will see as that is a rather ambitious goal. For now, just keep doing what you are doing.

The impact that you can have on the process is to stay informed, attend Council meetings if you can, send feedback to the Council after attending a meeting if you have observed something that concerns or delights you and keep talking to each other. Doing nothing makes one feel powerless. I do know that the Registrar of the TC-CHO is listening so don’t be shy. You can write to the TC-CHO at:

info@collegeofhomeopaths.on.ca

Questions, comments, additions to: afmcclintock@sympatico.ca

February 22, 2010

Okay, so we now have a Transitional Council which will become the College of Homeopaths in the next 3-5 years. What exactly is involved in this transition? What is their accountability to us as the future professional membership and to the public? How does this affect our practices now? Does credentialing become problematic, now and in the future?

The transition period is the one in which, as stated in Part 2 of this series, the College of Homeopaths formulates regulations for our profession based on the Regulated Health Professions Act of Ontario. As a self-regulating body, the College of Homeopaths will have to conform to this Act in a way which uniquely takes our needs into account (i.e. homeopathic prescribing, education, diagnosing etc) while protecting the public from wayward practitioners who claim to be homeopaths and are not. To this end, there has to be a membership, professional practice standards, a common mission and values and so on, that binds the profession together throughout the province while enforcing professional membership standards based on competencies, best practices and education.

The sixteen members of the Transitional Council (TC-CHO) make these decisions through an internal procedure whereby they vote to pass or deny rules, regulations, policies etc. that will affect all of us in the profession, and all public users of our services. Because of the monumental nature of this task , the TC-CHO is broken up into Committees with each committee taking on a regulatory responsibility. For example, there is an Executive Committee (EC) which has powers to make motions, vote and discuss decisions on behalf of the Council. In other words, the EC oversees all actions of the Council when it is not sitting. The Registration Committee is comprised of 5 members of the TC-CHO who make proposals regarding the best way to register current, student and future homeopaths in Ontario and who is worthy of this registration. In other words, this is the committee responsible for determining what kind of education is acceptable, which type of homeopathy is actually homeopathy, who is practicing and conforming to a standard that is yet to be determined, who will be accepted into the College and by what method (board exam, peer review, portfolio) etc. This committee is probably the one that affects us most, currently. Finally, the Professional Practice committee is another body that discusses standards of practice and other issues to do with post-registration professional standards i.e. continuing education credits, competency standards and much more. There are several more committees which will be formed along the way over the next 3 years but these 3 are deemed foundational in order to move on in the process as a whole. They are working now.

The committees as I stated are comprised of just a few members of the TC-CHO. Each committee meets monthly, approximately, and then makes their report at the bigger Council meetings held about 5 times this year. Their report must be made at these meetings for a couple of reasons: it must be made publicly (remember the public can attend Council meetings), and with the whole Council together, the items discussed and proposed by each committee can then be voted upon, if it is in a final form and not sent back to that committee for further revision. Committees are very powerful and are the places where all the work gets done, behind closed doors. There is no public component to a committee meeting so the profession and the public are dependent on the Council meetings for information as to what happens in each committee over the intervening months. Can you see how important it is that the public attend the Council meetings? It is the only time when there is any information given about the results of this convoluted process.

I attended the January 22 Council meeting. It was very disappointing on several fronts. Firstly, the public was told that in a meeting that went from 10am – 4pm, we were only allowed to attend one half hour in the morning and to leave after that until 1:30pm when the public portion of the meeting would resume. I was emailed an agenda one day prior which was fine for me as I live in downtown Toronto and do not work on Fridays. However, for people from elsewhere in the province, this was not much notice to make arrangements to attend the meeting...and for only 30 minutes in the morning! I decided that I would show up with my colleagues at 1:30pm since the agenda stated that the public session in the morning would be a vote (by Council members) on the previous meetings’ minutes and approving the agenda for the current meeting (legal procedure is such a make-work process).

The meeting was already in session when we arrived, and had been since 1pm so we missed 30 minutes of the afternoon schedule even though we arrived on time. And the Ministry of Health policy people were late in the morning session for the “in camera” portion of the meeting (this means that the public is not allowed to observe) so the 30 minute session that the public was told to show up for at 10:00am was spent discussing the Executive Committee (EC) report. This EC report was scheduled in the 1:30pm – 4pm time slot on the agenda, a very important discussion that was missed by those of us who showed up when told to do so. We obviously missed the EC report as it was moved to accommodate missing Ministry people. I felt that the observers were dismissed as being unimportant in the process, certainly less important than the Ministry of Health. Hopefully, this will improve as more and more of the profession and public get involved. There is power in numbers which makes it vital for us to attend Council meetings. Too much goes on behind closed doors as it is.

On the positive side, there is going to be a website that will have some information on it. The TC-CHO must publish all the minutes of Council meetings for public access, at some point. I am assuming these will be posted on the future website. I do believe that the Registrar is committed to public involvement and as such, will be asking for public and stakeholder involvement other than just Council meeting attendance to balance out the current lopsided nature of the TC-CHO membership. I have no idea how the stakeholders will be informed of this participation, what it will consist of, or who will be chosen to represent all of us. It is a huge challenge but I know attempts will be made to make parts of the process as inclusive as possible.

People have been asking me if they can still use their credentials, if they can still call themselves HD, or use the doctor word in their title. As of today, yes you can. Since there has been no registration by the TC-CHO of the profession, no homeopaths belong to the TC-CHO as yet. Until that happens, you can continue to use HD. The Homeopathy Act of 2007 says that the members of the College cannot use doctor anywhere in their title so once we are all registered with the College, there will be hefty fines associated with the doctor title. The DSHM, or DSHomMed that you have at the end of your name is not threatened; these credentials just show the public and other homeopaths where you trained in homeopathy, which school you went to. It has no other special significance and all homeopaths in the province, no matter where they went to school, are considered equal, though their credentials look different.

Now that you understand the structure of the TC-CHO and how you are directly affected, at this time, I will tell you that there was very little discussed of import at the January 22 Council meeting. There were no microphones so it was difficult to hear the Registration Committee report (and their backs were to us, which further impeded sound transmission) but basically, they were just given a mandate to continue looking at other jurisdictions and how these other juridictions regulate and register members, and to continue to define registration for us in Ontario. The new logo of the TC-CHO was voted upon. The Professional Practice committee, well, not sure what they were doing other than showing a work plan for the upcoming 3 years, and having a vote on its acceptability.

I know I sound cynical; there is a lot of process involved in this that actually seems to slow things down. There has to be some accountability to the profession (the stakeholders) and the public in this process and I understand that the Registrar has a plan for this called “Think Homeopathy”, a series of think tanks in which the stakeholders will have discussion groups to counteract Council bias. This is an innovative idea in such a process-oriented environment.

I do not believe that the government process the TC-CHO is having to follow is malicious but it is inherently undemocratic and bogged down in indecipherable procedure. For these reasons, it is important that there is a dialogue that is ongoing between TC-CHO, stakeholders and public. I trust this will be coming. I also trust that, on the whole, we will be just fine as a profession. Schools will adjust just fine, perhaps having to compromise by adding and/or subtracting curricular items. But on the whole, schools should be able to remain unique in their philosophical structure while upholding a bolder standard set by the TC-CHO. This could be very healthy for homeopathic education.

Existing practitioners will go through a grandfathering procedure in a few years but it won’t be so rigorous that we will fail to become registered. Students of homeopathy will also have to be registered to ensure that they will graduate with all the necessary qualifications to practice in Ontario. This isn’t as scary as it sounds. I do believe it will be as seamless as possible because the idea of the TC-CHO isn’t to make us all fail or drop out of school, or give up our practices. The bottom line is that we are all needed to support a College so it has to work.

The best thing to know is that this will take years and no one school, no one style of practice, no particular practitioners are going to be targeted as the best or the worst. The Registrar wants the TC-CHO to consider ALL schools and practitioners as equal. The trick is to regulate inclusively. That is why it is really important to have public accountability. This means Council meetings, for now. I will continue to report information as I hear it, answer questions as I get them and to keep you up-to-date.

Next Council meeting is May 10, 2010. See you there!

Questions, comments, contributions to afmcclintock@sympatico.ca

February 10, 2010

In April 2009, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario appointed the Registrar for the Transitional Council of the College of Homeopaths (TC-CHO). This was the first appointment made to the TC so everyone in the community held their breath in hopeful anticipation of the appointments of the rest of the membership. The Registrar, Basil Ziv, a homeopath who has been an activist for reasonable regulation of the profession for numbers of years, began his work in June shortly after his appointment. Appointing Basil was a good sign that things were going to be okay and we needn’t fear the regulatory process.

The Registrar is like the CEO of a corporation: he must oversee budgets and agendas, manage membership and stakeholder concerns while following the rules and policies according to the statutes of that organization; he must assist in establishing and operating a College, and developing and implementing regulations, by-laws and policies related to the practice of homeopathy. In this case the law that applies is the Regulated Health Professions Act (RHPA) and everything the TC-CHO does is based upon following the statutes therein. The TC-CHO, while implementing the by-laws of the RHPA, will develop their own regulatory policies and by-laws which, at proclamation, will be called the Homeopathy Act. In other words, the College of Homeopaths will be self-regulating while adhering to the law contained within the RHPA. Confused yet?

Well, I think the TC-CHO is also confused and that is why the transition process becomes vital. Whatever is decided by the end of this process will be very difficult to undo. The transition time, the next 3 years, allows for some input, some dialogue between the TC and the public and the stakeholders in order to have a process that is transparent and accountable. Once this time period is over and the final regulations have been submitted to the Ministry of Health for a legislative vote, the Homeopathy Act is no longer elastic. The Registrar or CEO is the one who has the most control over how open and transparent this process will be up to this point.

In August 2009, the rest of the Council membership was appointed. There were 9 members of the homeopathic profession chosen (they are called “professional” members) and 7 members of the “public” (members who are not homeopaths and supposedly representative of the public). Together they form the TC-CHO along with the Registrar. There are 3 staff members in addition who do all the administrative work, research, support and policy analysis on behalf of the Registrar, who then decides what to submit to the Council membership. There are laws governing what can be submitted for public scrutiny during the process. This includes the access to the process by the rest of the profession too. It is very controlled and certainly not the transparent process that one would hope for from a body that is supposed to be working in the interest of the public.

Can the TC-CHO process be representative of all of us homeopaths and students in the province? It is estimated that there are currently about 800 homeopaths in Ontario, the most numerous collection of homeopaths in any province of Canada. The largest group of that 800 have graduated from TSHM, either from the in-class program or the distance education program, more than one third of all homeopaths in Ontario. The remaining homeopaths come from other schools in Ontario, other provinces and other countries.

In August 2009, the appointments to the TC-CHO were announced. Of the 9 professional members, 5 are associated with one school and association, one is a naturopath, and the remaining three are to balance this skewed composition of the TC-CHO sufficiently to represent the interests of the majority of homeopaths in the province. When this announcement was made there was a lot of dismay in the homeopathic community; not only because of the lopsided nature of the TC in favour of one small group of homeopaths in Ontario, but also because the whole process had been so invisible.

These appointments are made by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario but it is not likely that David Onley even knows who the members are. Since the OHA, on behalf of OCHM, made the initial application, they were the most vocal about lobbying the government on their own behalf. They were the most adept at staying front-and-centre in their quest for regulation even when the rest of the homeopathic community, the majority of homeopaths, were opposed to this application. It is probably this aggression that led to their appointments to the TC, but I am speculating. I cannot think of any other reason since the relative infancy of these groups could not possibly represent the majority of homeopaths in Ontario.

We are left with a TC-CHO that has no balanced view making decisions for the public interest on our behalf. They are deciding how homeopathy will be practiced, who will be able to practice, determining educational standards and quality assurance issues, and practically all decisions for the future of homeopathy in Ontario. It is an onerous task and will take 3 years.

What can we do when we feel so under-represented by a Council that will be deciding our future as healthcare practitioners? The first thing to do is to educate yourselves about the process. The second thing you can do is to make the TC-CHO accountable by letting the Registrar know how you feel as issues come up in the regulatory process. Finally, the most important thing you can do is to attend Council Meetings.

Council Meetings are held 4-6 times a year (the next one is May 10) and parts of these meetings are open to the public and the community. As far as I observed at the January 22 meeting, not nearly enough of the meeting content is public, and the TC will alter the set agenda on the day of the meeting if they feel like it, which is what happened at the January 22 meeting. However, these meetings are our only glimpse into the process and what is being accomplished in our name. Therefore, I cannot emphasise enough the importance that everyone in the homeopathic community, including students, attend these meetings. There is strength in numbers. I do have many concerns and insights into what the TC-CHO is doing and I will address these in Part Three.

The message here is: attend Council meetings. Until the website of the TC-CHO is up and running (this was supposed to be in January), then the TC-CHO is only accountable through Council meetings, which are very irregular. I will continue to inform you as best I can and my third instalment will get into the internal process that occurs between meetings, the structure of the TC-CHO Committees and the affect all this has on us as students and practitioners.

I would love to hear from you, any comments, questions etc. afmcclintock@sympatico.ca

January 26, 2010

There was a meeting of the Transitional Council of the College of Homeopaths of Ontario (TC-CHO) on Friday January 22, 2010. I would like to give you all as much of a report as I can on this meeting. But I realized that perhaps there is not enough known in our community, and for those joining the homeopathic community, about how we got to this stage and where we stand now as students and practitioners.

On June 4, 2007, Royal Assent was given to the Homeopathy Act of Ontario, a statute limited to a transition phase that will take place over the next 3- 5 years, the end point of which is called Proclamation. Proclamation is the end result of this very long process and means that the Ontario Legislature has passed a law putting the College of Homeopaths of Ontario into existence. There are 21 regulatory Colleges in the province, each having gone through this same process ; some many years ago, and others more recently, like the Midwives and Massage Therapists.

Historically, there were years of regulatory mumblings amongst the homeopaths and schools and associations in Ontario, and even some attempts to apply to the Ministry of Health for the regulatory process to be undertaken. I will happily spend another blog getting into this history. It is sufficient to know that the Ontario College of Homeopathic Medicine and its sister association, the Ontario Homeopathic Association, had the final successful application. The controversy surrounding this application, mainly because there was no consultation with the majority of the profession around the province (who were against regulation, for the most part), is another story. But it is important to note this application came from this very small faction of homeopaths given that the TC-CHO is made up of a majority of their members, certainly not a fair representation of homeopaths across the province. I think for the purposes of this discussion, it is more important to discuss what is happening now and how we can observe this process.

On June 4, 2007, when the Homeopathy Act came into force, it really meant that the homeopathic community in this province was given a legal mandate to fulfill in becoming accountable to the public. Basically, a College for a profession gives the public the means to be protected from that profession. I think part of the reason homeopaths were so angered by the application for regulating homeopathy is because homeopaths do not kill. Regulation implies that a profession can cause harm and the public needs protection from that profession on the basis of that potential harm.

Colleges are formed in the public interest, not the professional interest. It is very important for all of us to note that difference: regulatory Colleges are bodies which require registration and licensing of all practitioners, assures quality control of services offered by College members, offers a complaint procedure for the public, insists on standardized education , provides a core set of values to which the profession upholds themselves, demands a continuing education procedure, and becomes a body whereby the public can find out about homeopathy etc. It is the duty of the College to inform the public about homeopathy, by law, so this is a positive aspect of regulation for all of us.

Associations are the bodies that represent the profession itself. I am mentioning this because it can get confusing for people who think that associations and regulatory colleges are the same thing. They are not. Regulatory Colleges are governed by statutes (laws) whose only purpose is to protect and inform the public about a profession. Associations are the bodies to which the members of the profession belong in order to maintain professional development, continuing education, peer networking and conferencing.

Associations also advocate for the professions’ interest, can act as a go-between between the College, Ministry of Health, and the membership in complaints and other matters. The Associations can negotiate professional liability terms with insurance companies etc., anything to support membership while informing the public of what the profession does can be handled by an association. I suppose you could distill it down to this: Colleges discipline and define rules of practice while acting in the public interest and Associations make sure practitioners have what they need to be able to practice within the rules defined by the laws of the College and Ministry of Health.

In countries where there is some form of self-regulatory practice of homeopathy, such as Australia or the UK, many associations exist though there is only one regulatory body with strict rules defining who can and cannot be a practitioner. The associations in these cases represent, perhaps, differing forms of homeopathy. In Ontario, it is conceivable that we will have the same thing. However, it is important to note that Ontario will be the first jurisdiction to have regulation as mandated by a government in a formal way, anywhere in the world. In the aforementioned Australian model, the homeopaths of Australia have self-imposed regulation vs. being forced into it by the government. It is their way of looking for legitimacy and acceptance and their hope is that if they have all the regulatory issues resolved and implemented, the government can then endorse homeopathy as a legitimate part of the healthcare system in Australia. This is very different than what we are going through here in Ontario.

In Ontario, we are subject to jurisprudence and the full force of the law, even as we go through the Transitional phase of regulation. At this juncture, it is important to note that because we are in the transitional phase, we are only subject to the statements made in the Homeopathy Act of 2007 (see full text link by going to google and searching Homeopathy Act of Ontario).

Basically the Act defines the words College, Profession and Regulations (RHPA – Regulatory Health Professions Act...I will talk more about this in the next blog), and states that we cannot call ourselves doctor, and that a Transitional College will be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (this happened in July 2009), including the specific number of appointees from the public and from the profession, and that this body will subsequently be known, after Proclamation, as the Council of the College of Homeopaths. The TC members are appointed BUT the future Council members have terms of office (generally one or two years) based upon election by the membership.

The most important part of the Act for us to pay attention to right now is that no one may call themselves a homeopath if they are not registered with the College, or the Transitional Council. The TC-CHO had their first meeting on November 3, 2009 and thus there has been no time in which to identify or register members. And before members can be registered, there needs to be a definition of membership: who they are, how they qualify as members i.e. based on education, experience etc, what is homeopathy (if someone is practicing claiming to be a homeopath but is only doing Reiki, for example, should they be considered a homeopath and by what criteria), and the list goes on. Since registering members is the most pressing order of business for the TC-CHO, this was the first committee to get to work: the Registration Committee. They hope to have a registration process in place within the next year. Next blog I will explain the process they have to go through to reach the end point to registering homeopaths. It is very complex.

The Act is vague at this stage but through the process of Transition will become more defined. The Ministry of Health financially supports the TC until Proclamation at which point the membership will support the College. This has many implications, of course. This also means that the Ministry wants the work completed in 3 years. Once this work is complete, it must go to the Ministry for final approval, then the legislature where it will be voted upon and become final. That is probably another year or two after the TC has finished its work.

I hope that this outline fills in some gaps on why we are regulating and what it means in the bigger picture. Next blog I will explain specifics and share my minutes of the TC-CHO Council meeting that was held on January 22, 2010 and why it is VITAL that all of us attend the Council meetings.

Please send comments to afmcclintock@sympatico.ca

January 19, 2010

It has been a very long absence from my blog and I have missed it. My forthcoming blogs will explain this absence and what I have learned about regulation and our profession on my short journey away from my post. For today, though, there are more urgent considerations.

The disaster in Haiti is a very difficult thing to reconcile or imagine. In watching the news, one can feel so helpless and sad. I tend to be proactive about these things and what do I know how to do? I know how to be a homeopath. So, within hours of the earthquake I sent out emails, searched websites and looked at ways in which my skills as a homeopath could contribute to helping people in such dire need. I don’t have much money to give but I have skills.

So, in one attempt, I wrote an email to someone I know who is on the board of Homeopaths Without Borders specifically asking what HWB is doing in this crisis. HWB does a lot of work in the Caribbean and South America so is, I thought, well placed to shift gears and go in to do their thing. The answer I received was “I don’t know”. In frustration, I went on the web to look up HWB North America and I found that they are accepting donations for Haiti. There is no explanation about what happens with the money or if there is a team going into Haiti to assist in disaster relief. It is implied that they are accepting volunteers but the site isn’t revealing anything about when, what, who selects them, etc. If you are interested in donating money to a homeopathy-centred cause, HWB is the only one that I know of and the following is the information you need to make your donation or to get further information:

Send money to:

Homeopaths Without Borders,c/o Joe Lillard260 JR Hawvermale WayBerkeley Springs, WV 25411Make a secure donation online using your credit card via PayPal:

http://www.homeopathswithoutborders-na.org Or call 304-258-2541 and ask for Joe.

Homeopaths Without Borders is a 501c3 charitible organization, so your contribution is tax deductible.

Volunteers - please send your resume to the same address along with the skills you feel you can provide.There will be more - please stay tuned.

Send email to Joe Lillard, Treasurer, HWBjoelillard@homeopathyworks.com

I want to include an excerpt from homeopath Dr Ivy Dieltiens who blogged from the 2005 Tsunami in Sri Lanka. Her words could very easily apply to the Haiti Earthquake disaster. Sadly, I have been thus far been unable to find any active information on efforts being made to send homeopaths experienced in disaster relief down to Haiti. I will keep you all posted as I find information.

FROM DR IVY DIELTIENS SRI LANKA 2005:

The first homeopaths from France arrived here in January 2005 with the Homeopaths Sans Frontiers organization. Their work was continued by Rene Guarnaluse, Denis Marier and Eric Udell of the USA organization Homeopaths Without Borders (HWB). They were relieved by Dr Luc de Schepper, George Strom and myself in the beginning of March, though both Dr Luc and George have subsequently returned. I have been left with the strong feeling that should I return home as well, the efforts of HWB over the last 3 months would be lost. We have come in, prescribed our remedies and helped some patients in need. We have left no lasting impression – the patients were not educated into what medicine they were receiving, nor have they been left with any source to continue it. In a country following such devastation, it becomes important to not only help the sick, but to help rebuild foundations for the future. Education and empowerment become the mainstay of any country.

It is therefore my proposition, seeing the need and interest of Sri Lankans in homeopathy, that we build or develop a homeopathy clinic in the region of Hikkaduwa and Galle. From this clinic, camps can continue to be run into the neighboring villages, and eventually a program can be initiated where local women are chosen and the basics in homeopathy taught to them for use in acute and emergency care.

NEEDS

As previously stated, the greatest advantage of promoting the science of homeopathy is the relative cheapness. Foreseeable costs include the renting of a building (though I am in current negotiations where a building may be donated), translator fees (about $5 a day), transport, and my own living costs. Hopefully remedies will be obtained by donations or at a reduced rate. One of the biggest needs at the moment is that of a laptop computer to facilitate treatment in the community camps. A computer repertorising system is owned by myself (Hompath), and hopefully the Radar system can be obtained as well. This would provide a better service to patients as cases could be repertorised more efficiently and accurately. It would also provide the use of textbook information, as I am limited to only what I can carry. A laptop can be obtained in Sri Lanka for approximately $500. Depending on the support received here, I am committed to spend as long as needed in order to set up a more established base. This is the perfect time to start up such a project – after the destruction, people are creating new beginnings for themselves. There has been an added interest in homeopathy lately, with an advert appearing only 2 days ago in the local newspaper concerning the possible establishment of the first homeopathic college in Sri Lanka. I sincerely believe that with the minimum of funding (in comparison to other projects) it would be possible to affect a change and to reach the lives of hundreds of patients over the next few years.

Homeopathy has the potential and ability to help repair a country that has suffered such a huge amount of loss. This opportunity should be taken advantage of now in order to help those in need, and to help empower a nation while it rebuilds its foundations. By Dr Ivy Dieltiens

Please contact me at afmcclintock@sympatico.ca to add information, comment, or anything else.

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