A psychiatrist in Dubai has called upon the mental healthcare community to move away from conventional medicine, and instead turn towards homeopathy as a treatment for mental wellness disorders. According to Dr Vengalis Zafeiriou, this can reduce the incidence of severe side effects.
At the second conference on Integrative Medicine Conference, organised by Dubai Healthcare City Authority’s Centre for Healthcare Planning and Quality (CPQ), Dr Zafeiriou argued that homoeopathy can reduce the length of time you spend in hospital, the amount of medicine and laboratory examinations you need, your frequency of relapses and costs to you and state healthcare. He said that homeopathy, a form of alternative medicine, can also improve overall wellbeing and chronic disease prevention and treatment, and all this whilst being side-effect-free and easily combinable with any other treatment.
The ‘Advances in Evidence Based Integrative Medicine’ conference was created with the view of bridging the gap between conventional, complementary and alternative medicine through evidence-based integrative medicine case studies. For Dr Zafeiriou’s presentation, he provided case studies of patients suffering from alcoholism and autism.
After his lecture, Dr Zafeiriou, a Psychiatrist and President and Director of Education of the Hellenic Association of Homoeopathic Medical Cooperation in Greece, commented, ‘In psychiatry there aren’t any medicines designed to be curative, rather these relieve symptoms. Homeopathy can treat all kinds of disorders from anxiety and phobias to depression and schizophrenia. In mental hospitals, homoeopathy can treat patients with severe mental disorders, contributing considerably to the therapeutic outcome of conventional psychiatric treatment.’
But what do other insiders on the subject have to say about homeopathy’s role in mental wellness? According to John Graham, Chiropractic Practitioner, Mezyad Medical Centre, Abu Dhabi, homoeopathy should become part of UAE mental health care services because it ‘has a place in psychiatric medicine. I truly believe that body, mind and spirit are interrelated – you cannot affect one without affecting the other.’
Dr Naseem Akhtar Qureshi, Director, Division of Research and Studies at the General Administration of Medical Research in Saudi Arabia, added that homoeopathy takes the stigma out of conventional mental health care: ‘Incorporating a homoeopathic unit in a psychiatric hospital will reduce the stigma associated with psychiatrists and mental hospitals. Homoeopathy will add another dimension to the holistic approach in the treatment of mentally ill patients. It will be a useful addition to the therapeutic arm of psychiatry.’
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