2023-04-27 07:16:39
A long investigation which had the effect of an explosion in the small town of Pélissanne, near Aix-en-Provence. This Tuesday, the newspaper Provence revealed the existence of a “holistic health center”, Complexus Care, at the heart of several complaints for scam and illegal practice of medicine, founded by Hocine Sekkiou, a widely followed influencer on social networks. A center that employed dieticians and naturopaths who obviously went well beyond their prerogatives. This Wednesday, the day following this revelation, four former employees testified on condition of anonymity before a handful of journalists*, including 20 Minutes, within the premises of the CFDT. We take stock of what looks like a health scandal.
What is Complex Care?
Created in the town of Velaux, still in the Bouches-du-Rhône, in 2021, before moving to Pélissanne, Complexus Care defines itself as a multidisciplinary “holistic health center”, in particular to deal with the medical wandering of certain patients. The center employs regarding twenty people, including naturopaths and dietitians, often beginners or inexperienced. With, for patients, the promise to take care of potential customers on a case-by-case basis, and in a global manner. This is what pleased Perrine, a dietitian, when she was hired. “I was attracted by the promise of a multidisciplinary team, made up of researchers, doctors, laboratory technicians, the fact of not being alone with patients, and discussing with other professionals. “Scientific advice that would be a pure and simple lie, according to these employees.
Because the reality described by Perrine and her colleagues is quite different: the impression of a systematization of treatment, more or less following the same path, which has the particularity of being particularly lucrative. “We were told that we had to fill in the diaries, explains Joseph, a former administrative assistant within the structure. As part of my job, I made contact with patients to explain the appointments to them. I had a call frame, exactly as if I were a salesperson. “According to the CFDT, which was alerted by employees of the structure, the practitioners were paid between 1,500 and 1,700 euros. “Our boss talked a lot regarding money, regarding the business model,” says Charlie. “It is said to be human in the care, but when you are inside, you do not feel that, abounds Perrine. It’s business. “For the number of consultations, we had a minimum to do per week, for the therapists”, explains his former colleague Lucile. “And we, as an administrative agent, we were summoned several times to ask us why the diaries are empty,” reports Charlie.
At the request of their management, the dieticians chained the consultations, between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., always by video. First a contact consultation, billed at 150 euros, lasting between half an hour and an hour. Then it was recommended to the customer to order a sampling kit from a Belgian laboratory, Limms, which performs blood and urine tests, for a minimum price of 241 euros. It was then necessary to resume a video consultation, for 150 euros once more, with the dietician who interpreted the results… whereas it is beyond his competence. “We were briefed for that,” explains Perrine. The patients then paid between 50 and 60 euros to fulfill a prescription issued by a Belgian doctor whom they did not see, who prescribed food supplements, but also hormones or corticosteroids.
Why have patients treated by Complexus Care filed a complaint?
About 6,000 patients have been taken care of in this way since the opening of the structure. “The majority had thyroid or fertility issues,” Perrine reports. “We also had long Covid or remissions of multiple sclerosis cancer”, abounds Charlie. According to a source familiar with the matter, around twenty complaints have already been filed since the end of last year for illegal practice of medicine and fraud, in Marseille, Paris or even Clermont-Ferrand. “What emerges from these testimonies is the feeling of having been manipulated with a real impact on their health, details this source. There is an aggravation of pathologies, new pathologies that appear, but also financial and psychological consequences. »
A Facebook group of former patients who wanted to sound the alarm was created late last year. A collective complaint to the public health center of the Marseille court is also in preparation and will be filed by next week. In the columns of Provence, the regional health agency indicates that an investigation is underway on reports of illegal practice of medicine by a dietitian. According to several employees, the order of doctors has also been notified.
The prescription of drugs with significant side effects and the interpretation of analyzes by therapists who are not doctors are at the heart of this sensitive file. “The information in our possession on this concept is numerous and would seem to indicate poor management of certain patients, medical prescriptions outside any legal framework, drugs prescribed beyond the dosages and durations of treatment planned”, writes in a press release from the CFDT S3C Provence Alpes, seized a few weeks ago by employees in distress. “In great moral distress, caught between their employer, their employment contract with confidentiality clause, and the ethics of a dietitian serving their patients, these people needed help,” continues the union. “To think that, in the end, we may have contributed to the fact that people are not necessarily better, but that they are worse off, or even possibly to have put them in danger, that’s the hardest part to accept. “says Joseph.
Who is the man behind this structure?
The founder of this structure is called Hocine Sekkiou. This man is a well-known figure on social networks, with more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. On his account, in well polished videos that marry the codes of this social network, Hocine Sekkiou provides dietary advice. “He is addicted to social networks”, abounds Perrine. Communication on Complexus Care’s Instagram is also particularly neat, and the number of followers is around 27,000. “Patients idolize Hocine,” Charlie reports. 99% of patients want to have an appointment with him. “There is a form of ‘gourouisation’ in this affair,” said a source familiar with the matter. In the columns of Provencethe interministerial mission for vigilance and the fight once morest sectarian aberrations (Miviludes) confirms having received a collective alert regarding Complexus Care.
Still according to our colleagues, several patients claim to think that Hocine Sekkiou was a doctor. Asked by Provence, Hocine Sekkiou highlights obtaining a BTS in dietetics and a master’s degree in biochemistry, of which the CFDT, which has done research, says it has no proof. “I’m not a doctor, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know regarding it,” he says. I do my own research. On the contrary, he says he is a victim of jealousy. “He’s someone who is incapable of questioning himself and who always puts the blame on others,” says Charlie. Contacted, Complexus Care has not responded to our requests at the time of writing.
*At the request of these former employees, the first names have been changed.
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