Charles helps to build 'new age' hospital

Zoe Brennan and Nicholas Hellen
The London Times - August 26 2001 BRITAIN

PRINCE CHARLES is working on a personal remedy for the ills of the NHS, with plans to help build a model hospital that would tap into the power of alternative therapy. It will train doctors to combine conventional medicine and alternative treatments, such as homeopathy, Ayurvedic medicine and acupuncture, and will have up to 100 beds. The prince's intervention marks the culmination of years of campaigning by him for the NHS to assign a greater role to alternative medicine. In a recent speech he urged the NHS not to dismiss it as a "woolly cul-de-sac". Groups interested in alternative medicine are delighted at the news. Teresa Hale, founder of the Hale Clinic in London, said: "Twenty-five years ago people said we were quacks. Now several branches, including homeopathy, acupuncture and osteopathy, have gained official recognition." The proposed hospital, which is due to open in London in 2003 or early 2004, is to be overseen by Mosaraf Ali, who runs the Integrated Medical Centre (IMC) in London. He is also responsible for raising finance for its construction. Ali's clients are said to include the prince and celebrities such as Geri Halliwell and Kate Moss. Earlier this year Ali, who trained as a doctor in Delhi and Moscow, accompanied Camilla Parker Bowles on a trek to the Himalayas to "re-energise" her spirits and encourage her to give up smoking. The prince has held exploratory talks with Ali over the past six months about giving official royal support to the hospital. This weekend Ali was in India and unavailable for comment, but Eleanor Stoikov, his clinical manager, said: "The prince is giving support, but not in a financial way." A spokesman for St James's Palace said: "It is an interesting proposition and they have had private discussions on the matter. The prince has argued for some time for a greater role for integrated medicine." He added that the prince had set up the Foundation for Integrated Medicine in 1996, and provided it with £2m of funding. It is thought that the prince's foundation, based in east London, is providing advice to Ali. Alternative therapy tends to be more expensive than conventional medicine. Critics have pointed to its failure to cure serious diseases and to match the leaps in clinical techniques. The late John Diamond, the writer who died of cancer, stated: "More and more people [are] discovering the true secret of alternative medicine: it doesn't work." He added: "How many herbalists came up with a cure for a single form of cancer? You can count them on the fingers of one foot." Ali's methods of diagnosis are unconventional. He inspects patients' tongues and believes ears reveal whether someone is suffering from any inflammation. Ali has described ears as "upside-down embryos". The prince was introduced to the holistic approach to life by the late Laurens van der Post, and began a campaign in 1982 to persuade the medical establishment to form closer links to complementary medicine. He was aware of public ridicule, asking one official: "Do people think I am a crank?" after he meditated in public. He has taken advantage of alternative therapies to ameliorate the effects of a series of injuries from polo and skiing and a recurrent disc problem. Since 1988 the prince has enlisted Sarah Key, an Australian physiotherapist and osteopath, who detects back pain through her heels, to help soothe his polo injuries. An eclectic group of healers, fixers and gurus has long surrounded other members of the royal family. The queen is said to carry homeopathic remedies with her at all times, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales made use of yoga, reflexology and massage. The country's 36,000 GPs are now outnumbered by the estimated 50,000 complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners.

There are signs that mainstream practice is moving closer to the prince's wishes. Earlier this year the NHS executive approved an £18.4m scheme to renovate the Royal London homeopathic hospital (RLHH), its principal complementary medicine provider.