The trial of a Friborg healer, open Wednesday before the district court of Veveyse for rape and sexual constraints, relaunches the debate on the supervision of practitioners of alternative therapies. To better prevent abuses, some health professionals offer the creation of a public repertoire, like the one that exists for doctors.
It has been years since Pierre-Yves Rodondi, director of the Institute of Family Medicine at the University of Friborg and general practitioner in Pully, collects press articles on trials involving healers, rebouteux, magnetizers and other alternative therapists.
Invited Wednesday in the RTS Forum program, he notes that the slippages have multiplied in recent years and that the lack of control is manifest. “If we take over the trials between 1999 and 2025, there are ten, with 59 complainants and more than 100 victims … and this is only the visible part of the iceberg,” he said.
According to him, the current affair should finally cause awareness, especially since the healer tried in Friborg had already been sentenced in 2016 for similar facts. “I hope it will be too much, the one that will finally take the necessary measures to protect the population,” insists Pierre-Yves Rodondi.
>> Read also: Beginning of the trial of a healer accused of sexual assault in Friborg
>> The interview with Pierre-Yves Rodondi in Forum:
Advocacy for a register of alternative therapists
The general practitioner also wonders about the application of existing laws and the need to adapt them, especially since practices vary from one canton to another. He stresses that patients, often in a vulnerability, have only one option: file a complaint. “But everyone knows how extremely difficult it is, […] Especially when the facts take place in the privacy of a consultation “.
Thus, he pleads for the implementation of an official register for these professions. Because unlike the medical professions for which information is accessible to the public, “the population cannot check whether a therapist is recorded or not. And that, I think that is already an essential element,” he defends.
He adds that such a register would also have the possibility of raft practitioners in the event of breaches.
Between personal ethics and institutional control
Jean-Marc Chappuis, secretor of secret to Domdidier, in the Friborg Broye, believes that the inscription in an official register will not be enough to prevent abuse if a person is malicious. It relies more on personal ethics than on control devices: “For me, the main thing is transparency in the relationship with the person who consults and the adoption of exemplary conduct,” he explains Wednesday in the 19:30 of the RTS.
The question of control also arises for alternative therapists whose services are reimbursed by certain insurances. The ASCA Foundation, one of the main certification organizations in the field of complementary medicine, recalls that its members must respect a strict ethical code.
“In the event of a slippage, our general conditions allow an immediate suspension or the withdrawal of ASCA recognition. On the other hand, being a private foundation, we cannot prohibit a therapist from continuing to exercise”, specifies Laurent Berset, president of the Foundation.
Radio/TV subjects: Mehmet Gultas/Julien Bangerter/Maurice Doucas
Adaptation web: Miroslav Mares