Aid does not take on alternative therapies

Civil servants do not take alternative therapies for cancer.

(21.09.2010) As a rule, civil servants receive a sickness benefit. However, such aid does not have to be adopted by the state as an alternative treatment „generally not scientifically recognized. This emerges from a recent judgment of the Administrative Court (VGH) Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim (VGH, file number: 11 S 2730/09). The court reversed a positive decision of the lower court. Civil servants do not receive state aid for alternative treatments.

In this particular case, a doctor suffering from cancer had applied for the costs of a so-called auto-homologue immunotherapy in the civil servant aid of the state of Baden-Württemberg. The plaintiff is suffering from an incurable cancer. In the alternative natural healing process, immune-active substances are extracted from the blood and urine. Subsequently, depending on the disease, autologous blood cultures are propagated and given back to the organism. However, the country refused the reimbursement and referred to an expert opinion. There, the authors described the therapy as not scientifically recognized. There will be no recognition of the form of therapy in the foreseeable future, as it was said. Therefore, the man does not have a claim for financial assistance.

The ruling further states that patients suffering from life-threatening illness should not be excluded from medical methods. However, there must be at least a prospect or hope for a cure or a noticeable improvement in the state of health. According to the VGH judgment, this only applies if the disease does not have a generally accepted medical standard treatment. That was possible and also applied to the applicant. (sb, 21.09.2010)