Alternative medicine professionals protested outside the Portuguese Parliament on Wednesday to call for an end to Value Added Tax (VAT) for alternative medicine practitioners in Portugal.

"All other health professionals don't pay VAT but we professionals of non-conventional medicine have to pay," Deolinda Fernandes, director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine School in Lisbon (ESMTC), told Xinhua.

"To be able to continue to exercise our professions we have to include VAT, and that means prices (for clients) rise. We are being treated unequally to other health professionals," she added.

On Wednesday, a petition signed by 60,000 people, including Chinese medicine practitioners, osteopaths and homeopathy specialists, was handed to parliament to call for an end to VAT for alternative medicine professionals.

Recently the Portuguese tax authorities revealed they plan to charge VAT over these activities, with a retroactive effect of four years.

Bruno Campos, representative of an independent association of osteopaths, which organized the protest, said it doesn't make sense to charge alternative medicine practitioners VAT after non-conventional medicines were regulated by the Portuguese law in 2013.

He also pointed out that the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes alternative medicines as an important part of healthcare.

According to the Portuguese ministry of finance, these professionals work in a non-conventional legal framework and therefore are not at the same level as paramedical professions, which would make them exempt from paying VAT.

"Some colleagues are not charging the 23 percent VAT to clients and it comes out of their own pockets," Campos complained, adding that professionals in his area are still working under precarious conditions. Endit

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