Ayurveda for public health 21 November 2018, European Parliament

The Ayurveda community and Geoffrey Van Orden MEP organised the event ‘Ayurveda for Public Health at the European Parliament.
As the European Ayurveda Association is affiliated to EUROCAM, Dr Ton Nicolai spokesperson of EUROCAM was one of the guest speakers at this event.
In his presentation, he focused on the growing popularity of Ayurveda around the world, which is obviously due to its holistic approach towards the wellness of life and true spirituality.

Presentation Dr Ton Nicolai

‘More and more people have come to realise that Ayurveda provides compassionate, individualised health care and restores the harmony in the body through complete purification, a healthy diet and 100% natural medicines. The combination with Yoga brings harmony and well-being to body, mind and soul, improves the quality of life and empowers a person to have control over their own health.

Ayurveda has many principles in common with other types of T&CM. T&CMis focused on restoring the balance in the psychosomatic system with the eventual aim: creating and maintaining the health and wellbeing and reinforcing the autonomy and resilience of the patient; it restores the patients’ own natural systems for fighting disease and maintaining health with the aid of natural medicines, modification of lifestyle, dietary change and health psychology approaches.’

And that is what unites the associations that are affiliated to EUROCAM.  We need a holistic approach to the health care of European citizens that takes into account the psycho-spiritual, corporeal and social needs of each individual. Our keywords are patient empowerment, healthy lifestyle and health-promoting treatment, which perfectly fit into the European Union health policy objective to “promote health, prevent diseases and foster supportive environments for healthy lifestyles”.

EUROCAM would like the best of Western medicine and T&CM to be thoroughly integrated into European healthcare schemes for the benefit of citizens who are free to make an informed choice about a healthcare package that meets their personal needs and beliefs. Anthropologists have labelled this “medical pluralism”, i.e. multiple healing options on a level playing field. This would also provide a clear space for Ayurveda’s own philosophical and medical approach.