Abstract
In this article, the authors describe the phenomenon of therapeutic complementarity between alternatives therapies and biomedicine in public hospitals of Buenos Aires (Argentina). They contextualize the phenomenon in a global and local field. Features specific to Argentina make this phenomenon interesting. The first of these is that biomedicine is the only type of medicine that is legally authorized to act on the body; nevertheless, alternative practices have flourished not only in the private health sector but also in the public hospitals run by the state. A second feature refers to the alternative practices in the Mental Health Area that bring about a singular interaction between two different therapeutic models. Based on a qualitative study in public hospitals, the authors look into the reasons that generate the phenomenon, underlining the forms in which it expresses itself and the complexity of a field under construction that implies the resignification of the concepts related to health and disease.
Highlights
During the last decades, the boom of alternative therapies in western societies has drawn the attention of researchers of diverse disciplines in the field of social sciences, especially sociology and medical anthropology
The crucial role played—from the standpoint of the users—by these medicines was pointed out facing the treatment of severe or chronic diseases such as cancer (Broom & Tovey, 2008; Singh, Maskarinec, & Shumay, 2005; Tavares, 2003), diabetes (Schoenberger, Stoller, Kart, Perzynski, & Chapleski, 2004), asthma (Freidin & Timmermans, 2008), and diverse mental disorders
In a study made in Brazil, Tovey, de Barros, Hoehne, and Carvalheira (2006) stated that 63% of the population uses some kind of complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) to treat cancer
Summary
The boom of alternative therapies in western societies has drawn the attention of researchers of diverse disciplines in the field of social sciences, especially sociology and medical anthropology. Following the analysis of the reasons for the creation of the workshops, coordinators mention the impact of the social and economic crisis Argentina went through in the late 1990s (Belmartino, 2005) and the appearance of a new type of patient: We began to notice that a totally new kind of people was coming to the hospital, mostly men who had lost the jobs they have had maybe for 20 or 30 years, and who at the age of 40 or 50 found themselves unemployed with no health insurance.
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