It is commonly accepted that the majority of Africans, especially those living in the rural areas, use services of traditional healers. According to UNAIDS " ...80% of people living in Africa rely on traditional medicine for their health needs". Among the wide variety of traditional healers are faith healers, diviners/spiritual healers, faith healers, herbalists, etc. In recent times, traditional health practitioners or healers have seen an increasing number of their patients suffering from HIV/AIDS related illnesses. As it is their common practice, traditional health practitioners do not shy away from their responsibility to wholly attend to the health needs of their patients. Even those who may not be well informed about the pandemic attempt to restore their patients to health.
HIV/AIDS found traditional healers unprepared
However, traditional healing is a sphere that is not well regulated in Africa with the result that there are no guidelines as to how this profession deals with HIV/AIDS and those infected by it. Unfortunately, many people infected with HIV/AIDS are left at the mercy and discretion of such traditional healers, some of whom are not necessarily prudent and trustworthy. It may come as a shock to some that there are still traditional healers who do not believe that HIV/AIDS exists and those who believe the existence of HIV/AIDS yet think it is curable, albeit without any convincing evidence that this is the case. One would have thought that given the amount of research that has been done regarding HIV/AIDS all people, especially those in the profession of healing others, would no longer doubt its existence. This unfortunate state of affairs points to the disjunction between biomedical practitioners and traditional healers as it is unfathomable that any in the former profession would doubt the existence of HIV/AIDS. What should be more worrying, however, is the fact that some of those not believing that HIV/AIDS exists often find themselves providing healing to people medically diagnosed as HIV positive.
Traditional healers who do not believe in the existence of HIV/AIDS stand to fuel the pessimistic approach that tends to brand all traditional healers, and traditional healing, as a hindrance in efforts to deal with HIV/AIDS. This unfortunate approach, however, has the potential to deny South Africa, as other African countries, an opportunity to tap into the resources of traditional healers to boost their efforts in dealing with HIV/AIDS. At the same time it should be acknowledged that traditional healing should not be romanticized in a way that shies away from real problems that traditional healing presents. Prominent among those are the lack of proper regulation of the profession with the result that, among others, some dodgy characters proclaim themselves as traditional healers while not properly qualified or initiated as such. These are the ones that often advertise themselves as being able to cure AIDS despite not having a shred of evidence to back the claim.
Traditional healers improving their understanding of the pandemic
There appears to be some hope in that leaders in the field of professional healing seem to be taking the lead in providing some education in this sphere. These organizations provide training to traditional healers regarding the nature of HIV/AIDS and how their infected patients should be treated. They even facilitate and encourage some form of referral system between traditional healers and medical doctors employed by hospitals, albeit at a very informal level. A pertinent example here is the Traditional Healers Organisation (THO) which conducts training among traditional healers in South Africa .
Reality is that many people in the rural areas and townships of South Africa rely on traditional healers for their medical needs. There are many reasons for this but chief among them are their restricted accessibility. In a physical sense, lack of access to avenues of medical healing manifests itself in the form of clinics and hospitals being far away from places where would-be patients live. It is not unheard of for someone to have to walk a long distance (as far as 20 kilometers to get to the nearest clinic or hospital) or be expected to pay taxi fare in excess of fifty rands just to access such a facility. In a psychological sense some people tend to associate any ailment to spiritual things such as witchcraft, ancestors showing their unhappiness about a particular person or calling such person to be initiated as a traditional healer. As UNAIDS succinctly put it in respect of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases "...healers in many settings, whether rural or urban, often ascribe these to transgressions of taboos related to birth, pregnancy, marriage and death". The result is that some traditional healers hold on the HIV/AIDS infected people until the very last stages when referral to a hospital takes place. For some people this is way too late and they end up losing their lives.
The way forward
It would be wise for the South African and fellow African governments to lobby and use traditional healers in dealing with this pandemic. The ground has already been prepared by organizations such as the Traditional Healers Organisation which provides training to traditional healers in its membership. Traditional healers who have received such training describe it as eye-opening and better understand HIV/AIDS. They even advise their patients to test for HIV/AIDS before attending to their traditional healing needs. As traditional healers have access to a huge number of South Africans, they can serve as a conduit in delivering HIV/AIDS education. The government cannot afford to continue treating traditional healing as though it does not exist and go about their HIV/AIDS policies without including them. This may save many lives in a continent where, according to UNAIDS, AIDS has become the number one cause of death. What seems to be necessary is a holistic and pragmatic approach that narrows the gap between biomedical and traditional healings in a way that constructively complements the national and international efforts to deal with HIV/AIDS.
This becomes important as male circumcision, in a way of an example, has become a part of some African governments' approach in the fight against the pandemic. Traditional healers play a dominant role in circumcision schools and stand to contribute towards education and awareness creation about the problem. Those in authority must desist from the tendency that seeks to regard African practice with disdain, suspicion and/or disrespect for HIV/AIDS demands collective effort from both traditional and biomedical health practitioners. Some biomedical practitioners, often having learned from bad experiences, shudder at the mention of traditional healers being involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. They often argue that there is nothing good that traditional healers bring to the table in this fight and/or potential collaboration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Biomedical practitioners should, with humility, accept that they are not accessible to many Africans (especially black Africans) and traditional healers are. And, it is in their interest to influence traditional healing in ways that affirms it and makes it safer for both its practitioners and patients. Training traditional healers about the importance of using surgical gloves, as an organization such as THO would testify, has been welcomed by traditional healers and has enriched their knowledge in primary health care.
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