Political and Professional Defense
The "art of healing" in Belgium is regulated by Royal Decree nr. 78 of 10 November 1967.
The law of 6 April 1995 amending Royal Decree nr. 78 of 10 November 1967, regulating the practice of physical therapy does not cover under any circumstances the art of osteopathy.
The first osteopathy practices appeared in Belgium during the 1970s. Practitioners were then trained in England and in France .
Practitioners trained in England founded the Societé de Recherche en Thérapie Manuelle, asbl (Society for Research in Manipulative Therapy - a non-profit organisation) on 22 September 1975.
They changed its name to Société Belge d'Ostéopathie et de Recherche en Thérapie Manuelle, asbl, SBO-RTM (Belgian Society of Osteopathy and Society for Research in Manipulative Therapy - a non-profit organisation), whose statutes were published in the Moniteur Belge (the Belgian Official Journal) on 29 January 1976.
Practitioners trained in France formed the Association Belge de Thérapie Manuelle, asbl, (Belgian Association of Manipulative Therapy - a non-profit organisation) whose statutes were published in the Moniteur Belge on 17 August 1978. They changed its name to Association Belge des Ostéopathes, asbl, ABO (Belgian Association of Osteopaths- a non-profit organisation) published in the Moniteur Belge on 3 June 1982.
The Belgian Register of Osteopaths, BRO was created on 1 June 1983, to offer professionals and patients - in the legal vacuum of the time - a guarantee in terms of ethics and professional conduct. Its statutes were published in the Moniteur Belge of 22 March 1984.
The 1985-1986 academic year became the key year for osteopathic medicine in Belgium :
1. A first trial against a fellow osteopath, for unlawful practice of the art of healing ended on 20 March 1985. He was given a minimum sentence but with very clear "reasons" adduced on the practice of osteopathy.
2. On the last weekend of May 1986, an International Convention on Osteopathy consisting of 34 osteopathic associations and colleges from 9 European countries took place on the initiative of the Belgian osteopaths.
The participants unanimously voted that the European Convention should henceforth recognise the necessity of an advanced training with a long curriculum for osteopathic medicine. They voted in accordance with the directives of the European Economic Community on the training of health professionals with a high level of responsibility.
3. On 27 September 1986, the two representative professional groupings in the field of osteopathy in Belgium (SBO-RTM and ABO) organized the Summit Conference on Osteopathy at Louvain-La-Neuve.
They merged in SBO-BVO (Belgian Society of Osteopathy).
The Académie d'Ostéopathie de Belgique ( Academy of Osteopathy of Belgium ) was founded the same day.
In January 1987, with the support of the SBO-BVO, a college of professionals and professors from Belgian universities organized a third cycle training (equivalent to university degree) in order to train osteopaths DO on the campus of the Vrije Universiteit (university of the Flemish Community of Brussels).
On 23 December 1987 the title "ostéopathe, DO" is recognised as an individual service mark under Benelux registration.
On 22 December 1986, the SBO-BVO filed an application with the Registry of the Conseil d'Etat (the Highest Administrative Court of Justice in Belgium ) to obtain the legal status of Recognised Professional Union. For more than six years, the Council of the Ordre des Médecins (Medical Association), the Académie Royale de Médecine de Belgique (Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine) and all the intervening parties opposed to this request. The Conseil d'Etat, at its session of 26 May 1993 declared that the SBO-BVO was entitled to proceed with its claim. Since the conditions prescribed by the law were met for the establishment of a professional union, the Conseil d'Etat, at its session of 24 January 1994, ordered the publication of the statutes of the SBO-BVO as a professional union in the Moniteur Belge on 2 February 1994.
The main advantage of an official recognition as a Professional Union is the granting not only of the status of a legal entity, but also the right for the Union to go before the courts to defend the individual and collective professional interests that the members have in their capacity as members.
But the legal battle in Belgium was not over. On 9 June 1993, the National Bureau of the Ordre des Médecins lodged a complaint against all osteopaths and on 3 November 1993, the Minister of Public Health in turn made the same complaint. In a joint complaint dated 5 April 1994 against the Conseil d'Etat and the Belgian State the Association des Médecins Spécialistes en Médecine Physique et Réhabilitation (Association of Doctors Specialising in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation), the Union Professionnelle des Chirurgiens en Orthopédie et Traumatologie (Professional Union of Orthopaedic and Traumatology Surgeons), the Association des Rhumatologues (Association of Rheumatologists) and the Association des Unions Professionnelles des Médecins Spécialistes (Association of Professional Unions of Specialist Physicians) demanded that the decision of the Conseil d'Etat, granting the Belgian osteopaths the right to set up a Recognised Professional Union, should be quashed. In its judgement of 7 July 1994, the 10th Chamber of the Conseil d'Etat again voted in favour of the SBO-BVO - UP (Professional Union), rejecting the joint complaint from the associations of physicians on appeal.
Our affiliation with the European Register of Osteopaths (named today European Federation of Osteopaths - EFO), an international association with a scientific aim, recognised by the Royal Decree of 14 August 1992, on a proposal from the Belgian Minister of Justice, shows our concern to seek the same training, the same professional and ethical concepts in the various countries of the European Union.
It is desirable to create, within a relatively short period of time, a European Academy of Osteopathy, independent from the Register, but only devoted to the scientific aspects of the profession, in order to achieve academic harmonisation of European osteopathy.
The SBO-BVO set up a social dispensary with the support of the administration of the City of Brussels in order to offer osteopathic treatment to people having financial difficulties. It officially opened on 18 September 1981, in the presence of the Mayor Mr. Van Halteren and various American, British and French VIPs, initially at 73 rue des Minimes - 1000 Brussels , then at 55-57 rue du Rempart des Moines - 1000 Brussels . It was located in a public housing estate where people with low resources could benefit from osteopathic treatment at a reduced cost.
As of today, visits for children and newborns are also possible.
In order to clearly separate professional conduct from other general policies, the General Assembly of the SBO-BVO - UP, on 23 February 1994 decided to confer upon the Belgian Register of Osteopaths, asbl (a non-profit organisation) - only made up of full members of the Professional Union - the function of National Ethics Committee of Belgian osteopaths.
Since 12 March 1996, the profession of osteopathy has been officially represented by only the SBO-BVO - UP to the Consultative Committees of the Ministry for the Middle Classes; this allows us to participate actively in the economic and social life of our country.
The profession of osteopath is listed as a profession in its own right in the National Register of Professions managed by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the number 030672.
The SBO-BVO - UP worked on a law proposal aiming at the recognition of the art of osteopathy and the creation of an official and independent status for professionals. The texts were presented to legal experts, then to the Full Members of the Public Health Committee on 24 September 1996 in debating Chamber nr. 1 of the Chamber of Representatives.
In February 1994, the European Parliament Member Paul Lannoye presented to the European Parliament a new draft resolution on the statute of non-conventional medicines.
The draft resolution was submitted in May 1995 to the plenary session of the Parliament but was never voted because of a strategy carried out by opponents.
Paul Lannoye was re-elected as a Member of the European Parliament in June 1995 and brought in a new draft resolution on non-conventional medicines. On 16 March 1997, the Commission adopted the report, with its 99 proposed amendments. In the plenary session of 28 May 1997, 11 additional amendments were presented and discussed.
The European Parliament, in its plenary session of 29 May 1997, voted in favour of the report by 152 votes for, 125 against and 27 abstentions. The report became the "Résolution Collins" (Collins Resolution) and was no longer called the "Rapport Lannoye II"(Lannoye II Report).
With this vote, the European Parliament asked the Commission to embark on the process of recognising non-conventional medicines, among which Osteopathy.
At the end of August 1997, following the resolution voted by the European Parliament and to answer our desire to regulate the osteopathic profession, Minister of Public Health Marcel Colla decided to gather the different professions in order to grant them a status: osteopathy, homeopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture.
A discussion forum was organised to this end on 15 October 1997.
The draft bill was proposed to the Council of Ministers and sent to the Conseil d'Etat for its opinion on 6 February 1998.
Between 15 October 1997 and 6 February 1998, the text underwent several modifications. Rather than using the terms « recognition » and « approval », it now uses « registration ».
The Council of Ministers approved the text as a free-standing draft bill, i.e. that it would not be submitted as a chapter appended to Royal Decree nr. 78 on the art of healing. The Council of Ministers asked the Conseil d'Etat to issue its opinion, which was given on 26 June 1998.
The Legal Service of the Ministry of Public Health adapted the basic text to reflect the opinion of the Conseil d'Etat and submitted it to the Council of Ministers on 10 July 1998. They approved and forwarded it to the Public Health Committee where it was first debated on 27 October 1998.
It is worth noticing that various members of the SBO-BVO - UP were then accepted and listed as International Affiliate Members of the American Academy of Osteopathy (AAO).
Immediately after the adoption by the Senate of the Draft Bill of the Minister of Public Health Marcel Colla (socialist) on 22 April 1999, the SBO-BVO asked to be registered as a representative organisation in the Joint Committee and in the "Chambre d'Ostéopathie" (Chamber of Osteopathy).
In 2000, Minister Magda Aelvoet decided to make a first step towards the recognition of certain professional organisations of homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy, chiropractic and other CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) to give Authorities solid basis for later negotiations.
Too many people claiming to be osteopaths took full advantage of the legal vacuum of the time to make an easy and somewhat fraudulent amalgam between physical therapy and osteopathic medicine. The SBO-BVO became insistent with the Minister: it was high time to officially differentiate these two professions to avoid any unfair competition.
Several experienced members of the SBO-BVO were appointed experts by the Courts in order to intervene in legal proceedings against physical therapists who pretended to be osteopaths and were pursued for unlawful practice of the art of healing, after a complaint filed by an unhappy patient or automatically. Jef Taverniers succeeded to Magda Alvoet and recognised the Professional Unions, among which the SBO-BVO in the Royal Decree of 10 February 2003.
The Health survey carried out in Belgium in 1997 concluded that 42% of people in Belgium had already resorted to non-conventional medicine. In 1996 almost 8% of the population declared having consulted an acupuncturist, a homeopath, a chiropractor or an osteopath, 41% of the consultations being either at a homeopath or an osteopath.
A survey published in the "Journal du Médecin" (the Doctor Journal) on 26 May 2000 concluded that most non-conventional treatments were ineffective ant that the results of osteopathy were the only judged as acceptable: osteopathy received from physicians a score of efficacy of 5.4 out of 10.
In the survey report published in the second half of 2002 by TEST ACHATS in TESTS-SANTE magazine, it is stated that osteopathic treatments do improve indeed the quality of the physical life of the patient.
In May 1999, the Fédération des Mutualités Socialistes (Federation of Socialist Mutual Insurances) publicly announced that their additional insurance policy would include a partial refund of the fee for osteopathic treatment. Other Mutual Insurances would later on follow this decision.
On 27 January 2002, Claude Rousseau, DO, (Vice-President of the SBO-BVO and General Secretary of the European Federation of Osteopaths) founded, on the basis of specific criteria in the socio-professional and academic fields, the Groupement National Représentatif des Professionnels de l'Ostéopathie, GNRPO (National Grouping Representative for the Professionals of Osteopathy). The six Professional Unions recognised by the Conseil d'Etat decided to be members of the GNRPO.
On 22 June 2002, the GNRPO consisted of five Professional Unions.
From 1 June 2003 and on, all the Mutual Insurances of the country refer to the list of the GNRPO. This means that only the patients treated by an osteopath DO affiliated in a recognised Professional Union member of the GNRPO will receive a partial refund of the fee for osteopathic treatment.
The statutes of the non-profit organisation, GNRPO asbl, were signed at the end of 2003. |
