B.C. moves to legitimize traditional Chinese medicine

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Sunday, December 31, 2000

B.C. moves to legitimize traditional Chinese medicine

By CAROLINE ALPHONSO

Globe and Mail Update

Vancouver - More than a century after Chinese people came to Canada, their

traditional medicine, once dismissed as hokum by Western doctors, is being

recognized in British Columbia as a legitimate, regulated health profession.

After years of nagging the government, B.C.'s traditional Chinese

medicine doctors, who use herbs to cure ailments and insert ultrafine

needles into a patient's body to relieve pain, are the first in Canada to

receive licences.

" It's going to change everything, " said TCM doctor Henry Lu.

The Ministry of Health's decision earlier this month to regulate Chinese

medicine practitioners follows a recommendation by B.C.'s Health

Professions Council two years ago.

British Columbia will be the only place in North America where Chinese

medicine practitioners will be given the title doctor by a regulatory body,

said Randy Wong, registrar at the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Practitioners and Acupuncturists of British Columbia, the regulatory body.

In some U.S. states, students can become qualified in oriental medicine,

but they are called practitioners.

" Without regulations, it's very chaotic, " Mr. Lu, founder of the

International College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Vancouver, said.

" Patients don't know what's good or not. If it's properly regulated, it can

help the Canadian people. "

A doctor of TCM is trained in acupuncture, rehabilitation exercises and

Chinese medical herbs. The more than 500 TCM doctors in B.C. will have to

pass an exam to be give a licence.

For the past 20 years, Mr. Lu has been struggling to get regulation in

place for Chinese-medicine doctors. Licences solely for acupuncturists were

approved last year. Acupunture will now be incorporated under the new

regulation.

" Many diseases that have been treated by Western medicine are not quite

successful, " Mr. Lu said.

He added that more and more people are turning to traditional Chinese

medicine, a system of treatment that goes back more than 2,000 years in

China, as a cure for their illnesses and chronic pain. " [Chinese medicine]

is not to cover it up. It's to cure it, " Mr. Lu said.

Mr. Lu is cautious about the bylaws that will be imposed on TCM doctors

by the college.

The number of years of study required to be licensed as a TCM doctor

should be strictly set, he said. At his college, students study Chinese

medicine for four years.

Mr. Wong said it will take at least two years to license TCM doctors in

B.C. after bylaws on education and the prescription of herbs are approved

by the government and the TCM community.

For years now, almost anyone in B.C. could hang up a shingle and call

himself a Chinese-medicine doctor. Now, with the new regulation, those who

don't receive licences could be prosecuted for practising, Mr. Wong said.

" It's really a major step in integrating traditional Chinese medicine as

part of the health-care system, " Mr. Wong said. " It's the best of both

worlds: Western regulations and Eastern practices. "

But for some doctors of the trade, this approval by the Ministry of

Health is only one step in a long battle to legitimize their profession.

Patients still have to pay for TCM treatment privately.

Knights, who is a TCM doctor in , wants eventually to see

the medicine become an acceptable practice in hospitals.

Mr. Knights belongs to the Traditional Chinese Medicine Association of

B.C., and has been pushing for licences for about 10 years.