Alternative bushfire help

By Monique Ebrington
HEALESVILLE Living and Learning Centre are currently offering an alternative approach to bushfire recovery.
The centre will play host to local practitioners of Chinese medicine who are offering their services to residents affected by bushfires.
The Chinese Medicine Recovery Collective will be staffing two clinics with Healesville’s Adam Tate as one member of a core of qualified and registered Chinese medicine practitioners donating their time.
“The idea came after a number of us treated people who were desperately in need of help and who were really doing it hard in the first three or four weeks after the fires. We decided to run some free clinics to help people,” Mr Tate said.
He said the clinics can help people who are experiencing post-traumatic symptoms or for people, including emergency service workers, who received injury or trauma due to the fires.
“Chinese medicine is treating about treating the person and not an illness. We recognise ‘qi’, we recognise the energy of the body,” Mr Tate said.
“A traumatic illness causes the qi can be blocked or disordered, leading to a range of clinical conditions from headaches, pain, and insomnia, to stress or depression.
By using modalities including massage, acupuncture and herbal medicine Chinese medicine aims to restore this balance.”
He said that symptoms treated might include stress, nervousness, depression, insomnia, fatigue, lethargy, withdrawal, trauma, strains and injury.
Sessions are free however the practitioners would appreciate a donation to cover the costs of running the clinics.
Sessions for the Chinese Medicine Recovery Collective will be available on the first and third Saturday each month between 10am and 2pm for as long as there’s a need.
The collective will be operating out of Healesville Living and Learning Centre at 1 Badger Creek Road, Healesville and at the Hurstbridge Clinic at 4/920 Main Road, Hurstbridge.
For more information please phone Adam Tate on 0410 507 317 or Shae O’Dowd on 0404 060 726.