Published
HealthRomands bet on the secret to cure the flu
A survey by SonntagsBlick shows that many Romands call on secret makers to treat the current flu and other ailments. A practice that convinces less on the other side of Röstigraben.
Seen as “strange” by the Germanic, the fact of addressing secret makers, also to treat the flu, is gaining ground in French-speaking Switzerland. The SonntagsBlick thus asked more than 30 of these healers who heal for free and at a distance by a secret prayer if they had any requests to treat the flu in these times of epidemic.
The majority answered yes: they currently receive up to 40 calls a day. “Since the pandemic, many elderly people, fearing for their health future and living in total isolation, have contacted us”, noted Marie-Christine Vaucher, Friborg secret maker.
The secret is part of the heritage
Unlike the Free Churches that are now mass in the streets with promises of healing, reports the SonntagsBlick, the secret is a piece of cultural heritage that is on the Unesco list of living Swiss traditions. As a reminder, the “secret” can only be transmitted on the basis of trust and only insiders know what it is precisely.
While there is no scientific explanation for this form of distance healing, in French-speaking Switzerland, all layers of society and all age groups use it. And even hospitals have lists of secret makers available to patients. The newspaper cites the hospital in Fribourg, the Hirslanden clinics in Vaud and Geneva, as well as the oncology department of the intercantonal hospital in Payerne and the CHUV.
The Sion hospital has its secret doctor
As for the Valais Hospital, it even supports the integration of different forms of care and medicine, as spokeswoman Célia Clavien reports to the Zurich newspaper: “This can be a good option, especially in cases of long Covid, where science reaches its limits”.
In addition, Florence Sierro-Müller, internal doctor at the Valais hospital, accompanies her patients herself, if they wish, with secrecy in addition to conventional treatments. According to her, the secret is in no way in contradiction with her title of doctor.
German-speaking skepticism
Across Sarine, we are more skeptical of its practices, notes the Sunday newspaper. Thus, Philippe Luchsinger, President of the Swiss Association of Family and Child Physicians, states that “there are many different possibilities to approach health problems. As there is a lack of studies on these alternative methods, we also cannot judge whether they do more harm or more good”.
(ewe)
