Romania's new rules for homeopathy and alternative medicine, explained for patients

On 25 September 2026 the Romanian Ministry of Health opened public consultation on a draft order which, for the first time in 19 years, sets out in concrete terms how homeopathy, acupuncture and the other practices called complementary or alternative should work. The press ran the story with headlines about medical astrology and feng shui, and the part that matters to a patient was left out.

I work with homeopathy as a doctor. So I read the full text of the draft from start to finish, not just the press release. Here I'll tell you what it says, what changes for you and what this regulation does not do, even if some people will present it differently.

Where the draft comes from

In Romania, complementary medicine is governed by Law 118 of 2007. It required the ministry to write the implementing rules within one year at most, meaning the practical rules people actually work by, yet those rules never appeared, and the ministry admits as much in the explanatory report that accompanies the draft.

Things only moved after a court case. The FACIAS foundation took the ministry to court, and in March 2025 Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ) ordered it to issue the rules. The September draft is the answer to that ruling.

One detail matters a great deal. For now this is a draft and not a rule in force. The window in which anyone could send comments was 10 days from publication and it has closed, while the ministry also announced that it is preparing an amendment to the law itself, which it will put forward once there is a Government with full powers.

What the draft means for you as a patient

From the text I have kept only the provisions that affect you directly. You'll find them in the draft in articles 23 to 27, and if you want you can check every word in the document published by the ministry.

• Written consent, before therapy. It must state who is treating you, what they are allowed to practise, which therapy is being proposed, how long it lasts, its risks, contraindications and limits, plus your right to refuse or to stop at any time.
• Information about alternatives. The practitioner must tell you what other options exist, where they exist.
• No guaranteed result. The draft forbids promising a particular therapeutic result and any claim or advert that could mislead you.
• Your doctor's treatment stays untouched. The practitioner is not allowed to advise you to stop, change or replace a prescribed treatment.
• Emergencies are not treated alternatively. Complementary therapy is forbidden for a person who has a medical or surgical emergency.
• Referral to a doctor when it doesn't work. If the therapy brings no response after a reasonable interval, the practitioner is obliged to recommend a medical consultation.
• Authorisation and register. Anyone who practises needs an authorisation from the Ministry of Health, valid for 36 months, and practices need a sanitary authorisation. The draft also provides for a single register of practitioners.

For people who are not doctors, the draft sets an extra condition: they may only work on the basis of a written recommendation from a doctor received before the therapy begins, and they are not allowed to make diagnoses or to present themselves as doctors.

Read one after another, these provisions sound almost mundane, because they describe what should have been normal from the start. That it took a court case to get them onto paper says plenty about how little regulated the field has been until now.

What it means for homeopathy

Here the answer is shorter than you might think. The 2007 law already said that homeopathy may be practised only by doctors and dentists, or by pharmacists where appropriate, and the draft does not change that.

Doctors who already hold the certificate of complementary studies in homeopathy keep it, because the draft states explicitly that certificates obtained so far remain valid. In future the certificate exam will be organised by Romania's National Institute for Health Services Management.

There are two more rules about remedies worth knowing. Only homeopathic medicines authorised under the law may be used. And products are not sold in the consulting room. I prefer it that way. A consultation in which the person recommending the remedy is also the one taking your money for the bottle is no longer a clean consultation.

What this regulation does not do

This is the part I want to say most plainly. The fact that the ministry is setting rules for homeopathy does not mean the ministry is saying homeopathy works.

The ministry wrote it itself, in the press release that launched the draft: “The administrative regulation of the field does not represent a medical or scientific validation of the efficacy of complementary/alternative medicine practices.”

That sentence matches what I write on my homeopathy page, where I say that the efficacy of homeopathy is disputed in the medical literature. In 2017 the European Academies' Science Advisory Council concluded that there is no disease for which there is solid, reproducible evidence that homeopathy works beyond the placebo effect. I don't hide this and I don't soften it.

What I offer instead is a long medical consultation in which I listen carefully to your history, followed by a recommendation made for the person in front of me and a follow-up review. The diagnosis and treatment you are entitled to remain conventional medicine, and the new rules basically say the same thing.

What to ask before any alternative therapy

A few questions will protect you from most problems. They need no medical knowledge and only the courage to ask them out loud, and they will be just as useful once the rules come into force as they are now.

1. Are you a doctor? For homeopathy and acupuncture the law has required this for 19 years.
2. What training do you have for the therapy you are proposing, and where can I check it?
3. Will you give me in writing what we are going to do, how long it takes and what risks it carries?
4. What do we do if I notice no change after a few sessions?
5. Do I need to change anything in the treatment my doctor gave me?

To that last question the only correct answer is no. You change nothing without the doctor who prescribed it. If someone promises you a cure or tells you to give up your medicines, walk away, however convincing they sound.

How I work

I am a doctor before anything else. You can see it in the way I begin every consultation. I ask what treatments you are taking and I never ask you to stop any of them. If what you tell me suggests you need a test or a specialist, I tell you so before any homeopathic recommendation.

If you'd like to talk about a homeopathy consultation, you'll find below how to book an appointment, and if you'd rather just read the draft first, the links are in the list of sources.

Sources

• Ministerul Sănătății (Romanian Ministry of Health), Ordin pentru aprobarea normelor metodologice de aplicare a Legii nr. 118/2007 privind organizarea şi funcţionarea activităţilor şi practicilor de medicină complementară/alternativă, draft published on 25 September 2026. Draft page · Text of the order and the rules (PDF) · Explanatory report (PDF)
• Ministerul Sănătății (Romanian Ministry of Health), press release of 25 September 2026 on opening the draft to public consultation. ms.ro
• Legea nr. 118/2007 privind organizarea și funcționarea sistemului de medicină complementară/alternativă (Law 118/2007), Monitorul Oficial no. 305 of 8 May 2007.
• European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC), Homeopathic products and practices: assessing the evidence and ensuring consistency in regulating medical claims in the EU, September 2017. PDF

This article is for information and does not replace a medical consultation. Do not stop or change a prescribed treatment without talking to the doctor who prescribed it.

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