SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, April 13, 2002: Combining traditional and alternative medicine, Memorial Health University Medical Center has joined with Dr Chopra, the best-selling author and holistic health exponent, to create a center where patients and Savannah residents can come for yoga, meditation or a treatment called Shirodhara in which herb-infused sesame oil is dripped onto their foreheads. Nearby, St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital opened a Center for Wellbeing, where people can take yoga classes and learn about aromatherapy. Hospitals in search of paying patients and a competitive edge are increasingly offering their patients some form of alternative medicine. The number of hospitals offering alternative therapies nearly doubled form 1998 to 2000, according to a a survey by the American Hospital Association, to 15.5 percent of all hospitals. Programs are offered by community hospitals as well as academic medical centers like Beth Israel Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Duke and Stanford, and they range from relaxation therapies and acupuncture, often given to patients with serious illness, to treatments more commonly found in spas.
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