Psychic surgery is an “unmitigated hoax”

The Philippines Ministry of Health has warned tour operators not to lure visitors to its country with services provided by the Southeast Asian nation’s burgeoning faith healing industry.
Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral told media in Manila that these forms of healing are not recognized in the professional medical community.
“Psychic surgery, for instance, wherein a tumor is being removed (by bare hands), is not allowed. That has been - in the words of the US Food and Drugs Administration and the Federal Trade Commission – an unmitigated hoax,” Cabral added.
Her comments came after the Philippines Department of Tourism (DOT) and the newly formed Health and Wellness Alliance of the Philippines Inc. said they are coming out with a new tourism package that will include faith healing services.
The country has many faith healers, estimates varying from a few hundred, to American websites that suggest there are over ten thousand.
A strong official statement followed reports in local newspapers and websites in early February, that have been noticed and repeated by a wide range of health and travel websites across the world.
According to Pilotguides.com, the Philippines is both renowned and people are repelled for its faith healers, who offer to perform surgery without knives and promise miracle cures for all kinds of ailments, from cancer to liver problems.
These healers are often blasted for being charlatans, who use fake blood among other props to trick and deceive; though some swear by their ability to perform these feats, and claim to be in a trance when they operate, and are ‘guided by god’ the whole time.
Faith healers tread a fine line between magic, mysticism, science and folklore and battle against the familiar taunts of charlatanism.
Acting as an intermediary between the surgeon and the Holy Spirit, Faith Healers occupy a sometimes revered high ground of a mystical saint. Often patients are desperate to be healed, pinning their hopes and money on a magical cure to a terminal illness.
But for every genuine ‘healer’ there are doubtless a dozen scam merchant’s, so be careful before you part with your hard earned cash, PilotGuides.com said.
The strong statements by the Philippines Ministry of Health came in the wake of announcements by
the country’s Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano, that faith healing services will be promoted overseas.
“It’s the first time that the different stakeholders of medical tourism such as hospitals, clinics, spas and other allied services have come together and formed Health and Wellness Alliance of the Philippines (HEAL PHILIPPINES), INC. with the aim of putting out a holistic medical tourism package,” Durano disclosed.
Durano noted that HEAL intends to put out a tourism package that would extend services starting from the foreign tourists’ admission in hospital until they return home.
“The visitors can then choose from wider range of services such as surgery, therapy, spiritual healing and visit to a beach and other tourist destinations,” Durano said.
For the past few years, Durano said, there have been tour operators that have specialized in faith healing but the DOT has not accredited such services due to difficulty in setting standards.
“Unlike natural health spas that provide the traditional hilots or massages, it’s very difficult to set a standard for faith healers because they do not have establishments,” he explained.
But he admitted that faith healing has also enabled the country to lure many foreign tourists, particularly Russians.
“There’s no scientific basis for faith healing, but we cannot just close our eyes because we know that there are people seeking for such service and it is available in our country,” Durano pointed out.
Dr. Joven Cuanang, HEAL president, said they hope to become an internationally recognized organization of health and wellness services, tourism and retirement stakeholders to ensure that the objectives of making the Philippines a preferred destination for global healthcare services, and for retirement are met.
“We hope to lure one million foreign patients and make our country a prime destination for global healthcare and retirement in 2015 by developing world standard services,” Cuanang said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Tourism said it is sponsoring the cost of surveyors from Accreditation Canada who will assess various healthcare organizations in the Philippines. They will be reviewing hospitals and clinics, as part of a drive to raise the quality of the healthcare system.