Collaboration between traditional healers and the department of health.
by Elizabeth Clarke.
____________________________________________________________
Traditional healers play a vital role in the health of the
majority of people in South Africa. They are deeply
interwoven into the fabric of cultural and spiritual life,
they are the first health practitioners to be consulted
in up to 80% of cases (especially in rural areas), and
they are present in almost every community, which
means that they are easily accessible in remote areas
where other health services are not.
They therefore have a very important, and previously
unrecognised, role to play in improving the health of
South Africans. They are an untapped resource which
has enormous potential to treat many prevalent
diseases and to educate the people in all aspects of
preventable diseases.
It is for these reasons that collaboration between the
department of health and traditional healers’
associations would be most beneficial to health in SA,
and why in August this year Parliament decided to
enlist the help of traditional healers in achieving major
goals in primary health care. In the first phase of this
collaboration, it was decided to set up a statutory
council to regulate traditional healers – create a system
of registration, promote their training, develop a code
of practice, and catalogue the medicines they use.
There are currently about 200 bodies in place which
regulate traditional healers, among them the Inyanga’s
association in KwaZulu Natal, which accepts members
only after they have performed an oral exam in front
of a selected committee. However, the process of
registering traditional healers within these bodies is
not yet uniform.
It is controversial as to whether the traditional healers
should become part of the department of health itself
or belong to their own association in an affiliation with
the department of health. The traditional healers
themselves have differing opinions on this matter (see
our article “traditional healers in South Africa”).
However, all traditional healers spoken to for this
publication agree that some kind of partnership with
the department of health would be beneficial both to
them and to the people they treat. As Mr S.J.Mhlongo,
head of the Inyanga’s Association said, this affiliation
would help traditional healers to “heal the nation”.
Meetings between the department of health and
traditional healers’ associations were scheduled to take
place this year and early next year, however, according
to Mr. Mhlongo, progress is slow. Although results from
these discussions were expected by December, it now
appears that the process will be much longer than
anticipated.
____________________________________________________________
Subscribe to The Botanical Source
free newsletter:
[ Opens a new window. ]
Privacy Policy :
We do not publish or share your email address with anyone.____________________________________________________________
