Constitutional change prompts swiss hospitals to offer patients cam therapies

More than half of all hospitals in the French-speaking part of Switzerland offer patients access to complementary and alternative therapies (CAM), an increase of almost 10% since 2004, a recent study shows. Their findings have led the study authors, from the Research and Complementary Medicine Unit at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, to call for CAM in hospitals to be subject to the same evaluation, validation and resources as conventional therapies. The study, published this month in the Swiss Medical Weekly, was conducted in the context of previous research showing that 50% of the Swiss population report that they prefer hospitals that offer CAM, and amidst policy changes by the Swiss government under which (from 1 January 2012) Swiss people can choose the hospital where they are to be treated.