Two health insurance companies – CZ and VGZ – have vowed to continue to help patients pay for pilgrimages to Lourdes, the Nederlands Dagblad reports on Wednesday.

Liberal (VVD) MP Edith Schippers has urged health minister Ab Klink to take action against the insurers, arguing that non-believing policyholders are being duped into paying towards the trips because they are not mentioned in the policy conditions.
CZ, which has been paying towards Lourdes trips since 1930, told the paper patients with a top-up health insurance policy can go on a pilgrimage, on production of a doctor’s letter saying they are either handicapped or serious ill.
A spokesman said the pilgrimages were not directly mentioned in the policy because they were too popular, and two out of three requests for help were turned down. Patients did not expect miracles, he added. ‘It doesn’t work, but it does help. In that sense it falls into the category of alternative medicine’.’