Years to alternative health rules, says FG

IT will be years before alternative medicine practitioners are subject to regulation, Fine Gael claimed yesterday.

FG spokesman on health Dr Liam Twomey said there were plans to regulate allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, chiropodists and psychologists, but not alternative practitioners.

Currently, general practitioners who engage in alternative medicine must be able to show that what they were doing had an appropriate basis under current Medical Council guidelines and will be struck off the register if they fail to do so.