The infamous alternative doctor Søren Ventegodt received a suspended sentence of 30 days in prison yesterday for manipulating some of his patients in a sexual manner.
Furthermore, the Copenhagen Municipal Court handed Ventegodt a two-year suspended sentence and stripped him indefinitely of his licence to practise, including being able to do invasive procedures of a gynaecological, physiotherapeutic or sexological nature.
The ‘good doctor’, who practised at a research clinic for holistic medicine, was also ordered to pay a compensation of 10,000 and 25,000 kroner to two wrongly treated women, one of which he had kissed on the vulva.
Ventegodt asked for deliberation time in order to decide whether or not to appeal the verdict.
Ventegodt was dubbed Dr Klam (Dr Perv) by the national press in 2005, when he was exposed for performing dubious treatments on his patients. His use of ‘vaginal acupressure’, where he massaged female patients in the crotch, was particularly criticised.
Ventegodt defended the practise as a kind of physiotherapy, but the Doctor’s Law Council (Retslægerådet) would not condone ‘vaginal acupressure’ as a verifiable doctor treatment and instead indicated that it had an underlying tone of sexual abuse.
Jakob Buch-Jepsen, who was the prosecutor in the case, expressed satisfied with the court's decision.
"It is the first time in Danish history that a doctor is sentenced to prison because of treatment administered to their patients," Buch-Jensen told Ekstra Bladet tabloid.
