The Observer (Kampala)
Simon Musasizi
4 November 2009
Kampala — Traditional healers have once again come into the spotlight for allegedly being responsible for the declining usage of modern health services in the country.
According to health service providers who met at Lake View Hotel in Mbarara for a one day workshop organised by the Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG) under the theme 'Delivering quality health through innovative partnerships', traditional healers are undermining the medical workers' efforts of taking health services closer to the people by advertising their services.
"The utilisation of modern medicine has reduced," says Dr. Tumwesigye T. Benson, the HCT(HIV Counselling and Testing) National Coordinator Ministry of Health says.
According to Dr. Grace Nambatya Kyeyune, the Director of Research Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory, Ministry of Health, it is wrong for traditional healers to advertise themselves.
"They give an impression that there is no legal entity to regulate that. Yet the National Drug Act is very clear on advertising. Advertising is allowed but when audited," she says.
According to Kyeyune, there is a department at National Drug Authority (NDA) where one is supposed to submit an intended advert for vetting to establish whether it meets ethical standards.
"It is not like you are priding in people falling sick. Some adverts can be negative on health. When [someone] says I want to fatten you, you may fatten someone who is prone to diabetes," she told The Observer.
"It (advertisement by traditional healers) has a negative impact because when one is sick, they are also sick in the mind.
They can go for anything. You can easily compromise a sick person's mind. It is really bad to give false hope," she says.
There have been efforts aimed at bridging the gap between traditional healers and modern health practitioners.
This has resulted in projects such as Traditional and Modern Health Practitioners Together Against AIDS (THETA) aimed at collaborative efforts against the disease. However, modern health practitioners still accuse traditional healers of instilling false hope among people by claiming to do everything.
"It is bad to go into things you are not trained in, for example taking people's blood samples," Nambatya said.
Government intervention
"We are trying hard to sensitise the community who are our target because it's difficult to arrest [culprits]. We know some whose medicine has worked well but there are those who have caused havoc.
People go there and die there. They can't be monitored well," Dr. Tumwesigye noted.
Tumwesigye also commented on churches, some of which, he said, advocate exclusive reliance on prayer for all medical problems.
"When people go to traditional healers, they still seek some assistance in our health centres, but with the churches, only prayer can do," he said. "They can get spiritual and social support from churches but that cannot work alone without being complemented by modern medicine."
According to Nambatya, government is working on a policy that will regulate traditional healers.
"The private public partnership policy, if it passes into a law, will mandate regulation of traditional healers," she said.
The regional workshops, according to Emily Katarikawe, Managing Director of UHMG, are aimed at enabling medical workers at the lower level to contribute to the coming policy.
"Our mandate is to work with the private sector. Since we started, we have been having national level conferences.
This year, we had the third conference under the theme, 'Delivering quality services through partnerships'," Katarikawe said.
"We have realised that there is need for health providers at the lower level, at sub regional level to get exposed to the national curriculum guideline and also to support and participate in the discussions happening in the country on public private partnership," she added.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Observer. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
