RMIT has decided to discontinue their undergraduate degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, creating a lot of uncertainty for the students, teachers and the future of Chinese Medicine in Australia.

We, the Chinese Medicine Students Association at RMIT University, urge you to support us in demanding the reversal of this decision by signing this petition. Our goal is to ensure diverse healthcare choices for all Australians and promote Traditional and alternative medicines. 

Universities are places of learning, not businesses. Universities shouldn’t be able to cut courses simply because the student cohort is small. Having courses of different sizes that teach different healthcare modalities ensures that the healthcare system is diverse and hence able to support the diverse needs of the Australian population. Removing this course as an option for students will have long-term implications for the broader healthcare industry, removing Chinese Medicine as a choice for many patients. 

RMIT's decision to discontinue both the Undergraduate program and Masters program in Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine means that the public will have less choices for their healthcare. The field will lose teachers who have been providing high-quality education in Traditional Chinese Medicine to undergraduate students for decades and the wealth of herbal knowledge that comes with it.  Furthermore, without new RMIT graduates entering the industry every year, the ability of Chinese Medicine practitioners to fill the demand of the Australian public will be affected. 

RMIT and Western Sydney University (WSU) are the last two universities offering government-funded TCM programs from undergraduate to postgraduate levels. So far, we've had no clear communication from RMIT leadership about how this decision was made, yet we know that the Chinese Medicine community was not consulted. We urge the Federal Minister for Education to clarify if federal funding for the course has been dropped.

This decision by RMIT, a publicly funded institution, goes directly against the WHO’s strategy for Traditional Medicine 2014-2023 whose objectives state that we need to be promoting the uptake of traditional medicine and increasing the “availability and affordability of Traditional Medicine, with an emphasis on access for poor populations.” 

Chinese Medicine Practitioners play a crucial role in providing evidence-based healthcare including acupuncture, herbal medicine, Tuina (a form of traditional Chinese massage) and many other alternative therapies. 

TCM helps bridge the gap between mainstream healthcare and alternative medicine, offering diverse solutions to patients' health challenges. They also play an important role in relieving the burden of overload on General Practitioners and hospitals in the public and private healthcare sectors, as many Australians choose Chinese Medicine for a range of health concerns. The growing demand for Chinese medicine services highlights a significant shift toward holistic and patient-centered healthcare approaches. RMIT has the opportunity to play an important role in meeting that increasing demand.

The time to act is now, for the sake of our students, practitioners, patients, and the future of healthcare in Australia.

Join us in saving the RMIT Chinese Medicine Bachelor Degree!

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