Health Department set to crack down on 'alternative health practitioners'
A department spokesperson said regulations governing what it described as "complimentary therapists and alternative practitioners" was under investigation by a working group and a report on the matter was expected within months.
Paul Howie died in April 2003 after being choked to death by a cancerous tumour in his neck. He had been treated by Mineke Kamper, a therapist based in Mulranny, Co Mayo. He is the second patient to have died under Ms Kamper's care.
Dutch-born Ms Kamper, 72, stayed behind closed doors at her cottage in Bunnahowna, Mulranny, yesterday and refused to comment.
Ms Kamper was registered in Ireland as a nurse in 1980 but she allowed this registration to lapse.
She studied homeopathy in the 1990s, via a correspondence course, after coming to Mulranny in 1980, but is not listed as being on the Irish Society of Homeopaths register for Mayo.
"I did not finish the final exams," Ms Kamper told investigating Garda Eamon Berry.
She did not attend Monday's inquest.
Mayo Independent TD Jerry Cowley, who is also a general practitioner and a neighbour of Ms Kamper, said he had been concerned for years about her activities.
"This is the second time that a patient, who was under the care of Ms Kamper, died and was the subject of an inquest," said Mr Cowley.
"When the first patient, who was told by Ms Kamper not to make use of conventional medicine, died, I raised the matter in the Dáil with the then Minister for Health, Micheál Martin. My concern was that somebody else might die and, unfortunately, this has happened."
Jacqueline Alderslade died four years ago after an asthmatic attack.
It emerged at her inquest that she had written in her diary that her homeopath, Ms Kamper, had told her to stop the medication for her condition, except for a Ventolin inhaler, while she tried the alternative treatment.
Ms Kamper, who failed to attend the inquest into Ms Alderslade's death, denied to gardaí that she had taken her off the medication.
Yesterday, Mr Howie's wife, Michelle, spoke of her regret at not listening to the views of both her and her husband's families in relation to his medical treatment.
"Our family were pleading with us and begging us to get other treatment, but we wouldn't listen. It was horrendous the way we treated our families," said Ms Howie.
"It is very hard two years on how we could have believed what she was telling us. Maybe we believed what we wanted to believe."
South Mayo coroner John O'Dwyer, who presided at the inquest into Mr Howie's death, said it was the second inquest he had conducted in which the deceased was persuaded to abandon conventional medicine.
It was of great concern to him that unqualified practitioners in healthcare were not answerable to any regulatory authority.
"The Minister for Health needs to address this matter urgently so that more lives are not needlessly lost," he said.
Labour Party spokesman on health in the Seanad, Senator Brendan Ryan, said it was "extraordinary" that anyone could become a natural health therapist with no real accountability.
"They can take money from vulnerable people making all sorts of promises which are clearly not possible to carry out. It is very sinister when someone can model himself or herself as a healthcare practitioner without being accountable to any regulatory authority."
