President ’ s Report
Peter Berryman | ATMS President
Wish me well in the complex endeavour of reconciling the past three decades of discussion conducted by at least five different working groups , and funded by many hundreds of thousands of dollars , that have considered the Statutory Government Registration of our - currently unregistered- natural medicine modalities , such as naturopathy and remedial massage .
For my part , I am in favour of the status quo , as of October 2023 : a combination of voluntary self-regulation by professional associations , each having their own Codes of Conduct for all their members , and the existing regulations provided by each State and Territory Government , with their own Health Care Complaints Commissions and Codes of Conduct for Unregistered Health Practitioners . It is my opinion that this combined regulatory framework provides adequate protection for the Australian public , which is the only ground for proposing the alternative - registration .
In contrast , I would like to let you know about one example of how registration has not served any useful purpose . Currently , ATMS supports at least nineteen different natural medicine modalities , from acupuncture to Western herbal medicine . Four of these nineteen modalities are currently registered professions – acupuncture , Chinese herbal medicine , chiropractic and osteopathy . The remaining fifteen modalities within ATMS are currently unregistered by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency ( AHPRA ) and its Boards . There is a Board for each profession that is registered . For example , the Chinese Medical Board of Australia ( CMBA ) regulates Chinese herbal medicine practitioners and acupuncturists . Each Board has just one purpose - to protect the Australian public from potential harm by that profession . These four professions are registered because of the proven potential of their clinical services for harm to the Australian public , which designates them “ high risk ”. The potential for harm from the other fifteen currently unregistered ATMS modalities has yet to be thoroughly proven , and currently naturopathy and remedial massage are considered to be “ low risk ”.
Of course , no modality or practitioner is considered to present no risk to the public , so there is an issue here of how much risk justifies all the implications and costs that come with registration . Please note that AHPRA is not a professional association for the promotion and welfare of practitioners , which is the function of professional associations like ours : Australia ’ s largest multimodality professional association , supporting many thousands of natural medicine practitioners nationwide , including around 25 % of the nearly 5,000 registered Chinese medicine practitioners working in Australia .
Having personally attended association meetings convened by CMBA and AHPRA , I have noted that they do not engage or assist in any of the issues that directly relate to the welfare of registered Chinese medicine practitioners : improving full access to Allied Health status , though this was granted in 2012 ; resolving conflicts of interests associated with the use of dry needling ; or even reviewing the recent teach-outs and impending closures of undergraduate higher education programs for Chinese medicine at two Australian public universities . Once again , the sole purpose of the CMBA is the protection of the Australian public from the issues that are within their scope , like the problematic advertising that arises from the use of patient testimonials , clinical complaints from patients , and issues with private health insurance providers .
However , even though for many years our Australian Medical Benefits Scheme ( MBS ) has listed item numbers that enable registered medical practitioners to be reimbursed with public funds for providing acupuncture services to their patients , a registered Chinese medicine practitioner who is not a medical doctor has no such funding for providing the same professional services in their own private practice . That is to say , the recognition of acupuncture as a safe and effective modality is not in dispute when delivered by a Western medical practitioner , but this is not the case for a registered Chinese medicine practitioner . To achieve the full status of an Allied Health profession , acceptable high-level research evidence on the efficacy of acupuncture is required .
The research evidence that has been provided to support this requirement has been reviewed by the National Health & Medical Research Council ( NH & MRC ). It recognises only that acupuncture assists with pain . So , 12 years since statutory registration was first granted to registered Chinese medicine
JATMS | Summer 2023 | 185