Adelaide bogus practitioner treating autism with massage

Elvira Brunt (pictured) has been found ‘treating’ autistic children with bellybutton massages at the popular Fravira Clinic, in Adelaide’s east

An unregistered healthcare practitioner has been found ‘treating’ autistic children with bellybutton massages.

Elvira Brunt administered the ‘alternative therapy’ to a teenage boy at the popular Fravira Clinic, in Adelaide’s east, Adelaide Now reported. 

The boy’s mother told a parliamentary inquiry last year that Ms Brunt is the only person in Australia who offers the treatment.

‘She does massage therapy. She just warms the blood up and manipulates the bloodstream through his bellybutton,’ she said.   

Ms Brunt said on Thursday that she has never claimed she can cure autism, but believes her patients ‘have benefited’ from her treatments. 

‘Obviously I believe the patients feel that I have benefited them because they keep coming back,’ she told the publication. 

‘I think the evidence of my treatment is the fact that I’ve been here for 30-something years, that I’ve never had to advertise, that all my appointments are filled, that all the patients return.’  

Ms Brunt – who previously claimed to have a medical degree from ‘Old Yugoslavia’ – has long been accused of giving patients false hope, and bizarre treatments.

She has previously been accused of recommending KFC to a girl with leukaemia and allegedly telling a woman diagnosed with inoperable cancer that she could cure her by ‘reversing the circulation of her blood’.

Ms Brunt - who previously claimed to have a medical degree from 'Old Yugoslavia' - has long been accused of giving patients false hope, and bizarre treatments. Pictured: Fravira Clinic, in Adelaide's east 

Ms Brunt – who previously claimed to have a medical degree from ‘Old Yugoslavia’ – has long been accused of giving patients false hope, and bizarre treatments. Pictured: Fravira Clinic, in Adelaide’s east 

Ms Brunt was named and shamed in a South Australian parliamentary inquiry into ‘bogus, unregistered and deregistered health practitioners’ in 2009.

The inquiry heard that the self-proclaimed ‘circulatory specialist’ claimed she could cure cancer and encouraged patients to refuse conventional treatments. 

She would also only accept cash payments, and failed to provide any receipts, the inquiry heard. 

In an unrelated incident, Ms Brunt also faced an inquest in 2012 after a toddler was crushed to death by a massage table at the clinic in June 2009.

The 18-month-old played with toys on the floor while her mother received a massage on a table above her.

The table was then lowered by a therapist at the clinic, trapping and killing the baby, theABC reported. 

Ms Brunt said at the time that she ‘didn’t perceive’ a child could have their head crushed by the table. The worst she expected was a knick to a finger.



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