Friday, 15 May 1 airing
19:30
Channel 4
Faith Healers: Saints or Scammers?
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Sahar Zand reports from the Philippines on the controversial world of spiritual healers. Across the country, with high medical costs and difficulties accessing healthcare, patients put their trust in alternative treatments to cure anything from chronic pain to cancer. Faith healers, blending Catholic rituals with centuries-old traditions, promise miraculous recoveries through prayer, herbal remedies and psychic surgery. Their clinics attract patients from across this country of 112 million people, and even overseas. Sahar meets families placing their hopes in these treatments, including those who've turned away from conventional medicine. Some say they've witnessed extraordinary recoveries, crediting healers with saving their lives. On the outskirts of Manilla, three faith healers who claim to treat over 100 people per week believe they've been divinely chosen to cure conditions modern medicine can't detect. But critics warn that the industry is dangerously unregulated. Medical professionals fear that patients are being misled, delaying vital treatment, often fatally. She hears from people who believe that their loved ones paid the ultimate price for putting their trust in miracle cures that they now believe were a scam. With faith healers operating across the country, authorities face mounting pressure to act, but regulation remains limited in a country where faith runs deep