Homeopathy in Kenya

by Richard Pitt

An update of the work of the Kenya School for Integrated Medicine.

I have previously submitted a newsletter by Marie Magre, the founder of the 4Kenya Trust and Director of the Kenya School for Integrated Medicine, the school she has started in Kwale, Kenya. A trained homeopath from Holland, she started the school seven years ago and through many trials and tribulations on the way has managed to establish an institution that can now take up to 150 boarding students doing a four year diploma course in homeopathic medicine, as well as a two year program in Nutrition and one year program in Community Health (which is the first year of the homeopathy program).

Recently, the school has begun working actively with the local Ministry of Health. We are supporting the Ministry in developing a more comprehensive health information system in the county and we are now planning homeopathic post-graduate programs for doctors and other medical personnel in local hospitals. The Ministry is interested in looking at a more integrated system of medicine, incorporating homeopathy, herbalism and other alternative practices into the district health care system. Our school is working directly with the ministry in this goal and we hope to have some trained homeopathic doctors and also graduates of our school working alongside in local hospitals. 

We are just about to begin a new intake for the four-year program. As mentioned, the first year is mostly community health subjects, which are important subjects in much of Africa, including Kenya. We also give a thorough introduction to homeopathy in this year. Once they have graduated through this first year, the second and third years are focused on homeopathy and other more advanced medical subjects. The fourth year is given totally to clinical experience, partly in homeopathic clinics and partly in local hospitals. Throughout the training, students are able to attend our mobile clinics. We currently have eight mobile clinics in operation and will be expanding these over the next two years when we will align more mobile clinics to local district hospitals running the Integrated Medicine clinics. Our goal is to reach more remote areas of the district that lack effective health care. 

We also recently employed a new Head Mistress and Deputy Head, which has helped us a lot in taking the next step and preparing for a large increase in students. We are aiming to bring in 60 new students this year. We also have been making improvements in the infrastructure of the school and are hoping to redo the roofs of the whole complex. Marie chose to use the traditional method of “makuti” thatched roofs, which look lovely but after seven years need replacing.

So it is exciting times here. I recently arrived and am now in the thick of it, including reviewing all the curricula, clinical training evaluation, post-graduate programs and how it will all come together. This week we are visiting local hospitals to talk to the medical superintendents about how we are going to start the training program. We are hoping to start these programs as soon as possible.