Vancouver Island health authority shuts down spa’s ‘fish pedicure’

Duncan spa owner Dixie Simpson has been ordered by local health authorities to stop letting her “doctor” fish nibble on people’s feet.

The Purple Orchid offers a treatment in which customers submerge their feet in a special water tank and live garra rufa fish, imported from Turkey, consume their dead skin. The toothless tiny fish are known in their home region as doctor fish and are encouraged to live and breed in health-spa pools.

But the Vancouver Island Health Authority contends that the fish could spread disease. If Simpson continues to offer the treatment she risks six months in jail and a fine of up to $25,000.

Purple Orchid had been offering the service since July 2010. The spa was featured on a local television program last winter, after which Simpson got a call from VIHA’s environmental health consultant Cole Diplock, saying she had to shut down.

“I asked: “˜Has there been a complaint?,’” Simpson recalled. “And he said: “˜Well no, no complaint.’ Somebody at the top had seen my footage on TV….”

She offered to help write regulations for the emerging field, to no avail. Finally she appealed to Cowichan Valley MLA Bill Routley. He asked VIHA officials to reconsider, but said last week that he, too, has encountered a wall.

Victoria-based Dr. Murray Fyfe, medical health officer for VIHA, said July 7 that he didn’t see any future for the service in B.C.

“Fish spas are fairly new and they were discussed provincially. When they reviewed it, they weren’t aware that there was one operating here in B.C. There’s quite a few states that have actually banned this practice as well as a number of provinces,” Fyfe said, adding that Simpson should have contacted the authority before offering the service.

“Unless there’s some science that shows the fish themselves can be sterilized, which is not possible as far as we’re concerned, I don’t think there’s any indication that they would be permitted at all in B.C.,” he said. “The issue really is that fish can carry pathogens, bacteria that themselves are hazardous to humans that have skin infections and the fish can also pick up pathogens from the environment.”

Simpson said she is exceptionally careful about cleanliness: “This is UV-controlled water…. The water is constantly passed through the fishes’ system, too, which keeps them healthy.”

Launching a legal challenge would cost the spa owner too much. “I don’t want to be forced to take out another mortgage,” she said. “There’s been [health] concerns about tanning beds; they still go on…. I guess at the end of the day, where is your freedom of choice?”

Fran Ryan of Duncan supports Simpson. She tried the fish spa and found after six weeks that she was sleeping better and her arthritis pain had eased.

“It gave me a lot of relief,” she said. “VIHA sent me to a pain clinic where I was supposed to learn how to live with my pain, but [the spa] did more for me.