A Florence court has ordered an alternative medicine practitioner to pay over €250,000 in damages to a woman from the province of Pisa whose health deteriorated after she abandoned conventional medical treatment for homeopathy. The ruling, reported Tuesday, centers on the case of a 28-year-old woman diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in 2016.
The woman initially received care at the Bambin Gesù hospital in Rome, followed by continued treatment at a hospital in Pisa, involving immunosuppressant medication. According to the court documents, her condition was stable under this traditional medical approach. However, in March 2016, she consulted with a homeopathic doctor in Florence, recommended by a physiotherapist she had previously seen in Rome.
The homeopathic practitioner, the court found, allegedly “guaranteed her cure through his homeopathic method, on the condition, however, that she suspend all ongoing pharmacological therapies, which not only prevented healing but too caused serious damage to the body.” The patient subsequently discontinued her conventional medications in May 2016, placing her care solely in the hands of the homeopathic doctor.
Within months, the woman’s health rapidly declined. By February 2017, she had returned to the hospital in Cisanello, Pisa, but the damage, particularly to her kidneys, was severe. She required dialysis three times a week starting in 2018 and underwent a kidney transplant in 2019, with her mother as the donor. Following the transplant, the woman initiated legal proceedings against the homeopathic doctor, alleging his actions were directly responsible for her health crisis.
The Florence civil court sided with the patient, citing expert testimony that linked the worsening of her condition to the cessation of traditional therapy. The court determined that the homeopathic doctor failed to demonstrate, as his legal team argued, that the decision to stop the prescribed medications was made independently by the patient. The judgment mandates the practitioner pay approximately €254,000 in damages.
The Tribunale di Pisa is a district court serving the province of Pisa, while the Tribunale di Firenze handles cases within the Florence jurisdiction. Both are part of the broader judicial system within the Tuscany region of Italy, which also includes courts of appeal and specialized tribunals for minors and criminal cases, as outlined on the giustizia.italia-mia.it website.
