White paper: The role of homeopathy in the provision of care

A new white paper, Quelle place pour l’homéopathie dans l’offre des soins? (What is the role of homeopathy in the provision of care?), presents concrete proposals for the role of homeopathy in the provision of care in France, outlining how it can contribute to major health issues.

It is published by HomeoFrance, a multidisciplinary group of 17 French stakeholders for homeopathic medicine, including patients, health professionals, trainers, researchers and manufacturers.

The white paper makes five proposals to uphold access to homeopathy for all patients, including, in brief:

• Maintain homeopathy as an integrative medical discipline
• Strengthen the training of homeopathic health professionals
• Consolidate research in homeopathy
• Develop regular exchange on good practice in the use of homeopathy in healthcare settings
• Reintroduce reimbursement of homeopathic medicines.

It describes how homeopathy is used in care today, how it can respond to health care needs and its popularity amongst the French people.  Because it is well tolerated, homeopathy offers a solution for unmet health needs, in particular for the most fragile populations, such as children, pregnant women, those taking multiple medications and older people. The paper outlines how, by helping to reduce the consumption of drugs with known side effects, homeopathy helps respond to two major challenges of our health system: antibiotic resistance and the side effects of medicines.

The document is supported by six elected politicians. It includes testimonials from patients, health professionals and other experts.

The white paper has been published in part as a response to the attacks on homeopathy in France, so as to ensure continued access to homeopathy for the greatest number of people.