The Order of Physicians wishes to avoid ” the confusion “ between health professionals and disciplines without a medical basis. The institution asked, Tuesday August 23, in a communicatedto Doctolib, at the heart of a controversy because it references naturopaths, “to strengthen its ethical rules for registering on its platform”.
On social networks, health professionals and patients criticize the group for allowing its users to make appointments with naturopaths, some of whom have dangerous practices, close to quackery and sectarian aberrations.
Doctolib’s criticisms have notably targeted naturopaths claiming to be Thierry Casasnovas and Irène Grosjean, two influential personalities in the naturopathic milieu but with discredited positions in the world of health.
The platform – which references doctors, midwives, dentists, nurses, etc. (regulated health professions), psychologists and osteopaths (holders of a diploma recognized by the State) – also allows you to make an appointment with sophrologists, hypnotherapists, naturopaths, professions with practices without regulation , but legal. They represent 3% of registered users on the platform.
Seventeen suspended profiles
The Doctolib group, a French heavyweight in making medical appointments, suspended seventeen profiles on Monday and announced that it was hiring “background work”including “a consultation with the orders, the unions of health professionals, the authorities, the Miviludes [mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires] and civil society”.
He is joined on this point by the order, which considers “that an in-depth discussion must open between Doctolib, health authorities and professional orders to better define the framework in which professionals can be listed on the platform”.
Doctolib specified, on Tuesday, on Twitterappeal “also to the public authorities to regulate these practices in order to best protect users”.
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The president of the first union of liberal doctors (CSMF), Franck Devulder, went further, asking “it is up to the State to clarify the practices of certain professionals who sometimes fall under charlatanism” and the Minister of Health “to regulate access to alternative medicine and to prohibit any advertising thereof”.
Medicine “must be exercised within a care pathway led by the general practitioner. The use of alternative therapies can be envisaged but within the framework of this course and with the rigor necessary for quality care »he added in a communicated aired on Tuesday.