November 9, 2005 – French osteopaths demand regulation of their profession. The goal: to better protect the public. With 750 members, the French Syndicate of Osteopaths (SFDO) judges that only a third of the 15,000 people who declare themselves to be osteopaths in France would meet satisfactory criteria.
The SFDO asks that the title of osteopath, recognized in France since 2002, can be reserved for holders of diplomas recognized by the Ministry of Health. He also wants training to be harmonized across the country. Since nothing currently regulates the issuance of these degrees, there are still many schools with nebulous academic criteria, which train practitioners with uncertain skills, accuses the SFDO. The stake is serious: it is carried out each year, in France, ten million consultations in osteopathy.
The situation would hardly be different in Quebec. According to the estimate of Peter Vanier, president of the Professional Union of Osteopaths of Quebec (SPOQ), there are today around 3,000 Quebec osteopaths of all stripes. “If we” cleaned up “the profession, there would remain about 500 competent,” he maintains.
Several associations and schools bring together Quebec osteopaths in small groups that do not get along with each other. In the eyes of both the SPOQ and the Register of Osteopaths of Quebec (ROQ), Quebec consumers are not protected at all, for essentially the same reasons as in France. The risks of harm for clients are increasing, even argues the ROQ, in a document that promotes the tight supervision of practice within a professional order, a request that has remained unheeded until now.
Guy Sabourin – PasseportSanté.net
According to AFP.
