Major donation to establish National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine

A major $10 million personal donation by Marcus Blackmore, AM, and his wife Caroline to Southern Cross University will see the establishment of a National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine to support education, research and the advancement of evidence-based natural medicine. It is the largest single donation ever given to the University and also the largest personal gift to a university from The Blackmore Foundation.

Since its inception 25 years ago, Southern Cross University has been a leader in complementary medicine tertiary education. The new Centre will provide career pathways and ongoing professional development opportunities for students and healthcare professionals – an important boost for the naturopathic profession and one that will greatly benefit Australian’s healthcare into the future.

This will be the first Australian university offering higher education in Naturopathic medicine, with the university to use the donated funds to establish an internationally-recognised centre of excellence and innovation in naturopathic medicine education and associated research. Vice Chancellor Professor Adam Shoemaker said,

“We aim to establish an internationally-recognised centre of excellence in naturopathic medicine education and associated research. We are proud to be the first Australian university to offer higher education qualifications in Naturopathy. This will enable Southern Cross to provide distinctive career pathways and ongoing development for the profession, as well as increased research capability.”

This positive, forward-looking development set to benefit the Australian community sits in stark contrast to flawed, politically-motivated Government reviews that concluded there was ‘no conclusive evidence’ for Naturopathy or Herbal medicine – despite these reviews assessing zero out of the thousands of published studies on Naturopathy and its major practice elements – herbs, vitamins, supplements, minerals and nutrition (read more here).

Mr Blackmore said,

“We have a responsibility to respond to the growing health care needs of Australia and evidence-based natural medicine will play an increasingly active role in that response.”

Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA) underscores that:

“… now is the time to place the onus on solutions that support the maintenance of good health and help address Australia’s long term ability to fund an equitable and sustainable healthcare system.”

“There is growing evidence in a number of areas that complementary medicines offer an effective, and cost-effective, way to improve health outcomes. Just a few examples of recent research that has been published on topics relevant to naturopathy include nutrition and supplementation, probiotics and internal gut health, yoga, natural pain relief methods during childbirth, and the benefits of exercise in mental health.”

Work on the new National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine will commence immediately, with a planned opening in 2019.

Sources:

Medianet media release

Complementary Medicines Australia media release