November 20, 2018

Cordyceps or cough syrup? If you’re inclined to homeopathic treatments for your ailments, you’re not alone. Many Chinese Singaporeans still use Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to treat illnesses and maintain their well-being, despite living in a Westernized Asian society. In November 2000, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Act was enacted, making Singapore a rare country that formally recognises the role of TCM in its healthcare institutions.

Asst. Prof Iccha Basnyat (former faculty member, Dept. of Communications and New Media) et. al. investigated how elderly Chinese Singaporean women mediate their medical choices between society’s dominant use of biomedicine versus TCM amidst structural and family pressures. Interviewees often preferred using TCM and concealed their medical decisions from their children as they are often expected to conform and use biomedicine. Yet, TCM’s high cost and the availability of insurance and subsidies for biomedicine often influenced them to turn to the latter.

Nevertheless, these elderly women managed to integrate both practices without prioritising one over the other by making situational decisions based on their experiences and their own health assessments. For instance, while some knew that biomedicine could relieve their symptoms quickly, they believed TCM could cure the root causes of these ailments. Furthermore, while participants believed that Chinese practitioners were better in treating certain illnesses such as headaches and stomach pain, many recognised that practitioners of Western medicine were better in detecting and treating other serious illnesses such as cancer, which may require surgery that Chinese practitioners are not trained to perform.

The article, “Negotiating Biomedical and Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatments Among Elderly Chinese Singaporean Women” (2015), was published in Qualitative Health Research.

Read it here.