Council of Homeopaths Conference opened by Janine Mataparae
New Zealand Council of Homeopaths Conference opened by Lady Janine Mataparae
The New Zealand Council of Homeopaths was privileged to have their patron, Lady Janine Mateparae, open their biennial Conference in Hamilton last month.
In opening the conference Lady Janine acknowledged her interest and use of Homeopathy over the past 15 years and shared the reasons why she chose to become Patron of the New Zealand Council of Homoeopaths.
The first is her personal interest in health and well-being, and homeopathy. She completed a Homoeopathy foundation course at the Bay of Plenty College and her certificate hangs on her office wall at Government House. She is also a registered Bowtech practitioner.
Her family has used and benefited from both traditional medicine and complementary health practices. They are fortunate to have a general practitioner who is aware of, and comfortable with, their use of complementary therapies. Homoeopathy in particular offers distinct health and well-being benefits. She also thinks that increasingly, homeopathy’s “body and mind” approach resonates with many New Zealanders.
The second, and more important reason, was to support the work of the Council. As the primary organisation for homeopaths in New Zealand, the Council has responsibility for accrediting and setting the standards for registered practitioners.
Ensuring registered homeopaths meet a set of professional standards, similar to other registered health providers, is an important way of keeping in-step with the standards and accountability required of all health professionals. This includes compliance with the Health Practitioners Competency Assurance Act.
She advised that it is important that homoeopaths meet this challenge because it gives the public, who are demanding higher standards from all professionals, greater confidence in the profession and practitioners. Consistent professional standards ensure that the public knows that the practitioners they are dealing with provide a professional, principled and competent service.
Earlier this year Lady Janine had hosted a case-taking workshop for Wellington Homeopaths at Government House. The workshop’s focus was on-going personal development, to enhance standards of care both for individual practitioners and the profession. Lady Janine acknowledged the sharing of experiences as being a key part of professional development, for any health practitioner, whether a counsellor or a midwife, a massage therapist or a nurse, a general practitioner or a homoeopath.
At the conclusion of her speech she was reminded of the words of the Roman philosopher, Seneca, who once said: “Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.”
New Zealand Council of
Homeopaths
www.homeopathy.co.nz
ENDS