Just When You Though You Had Heard It All

AS JAMAICA con­tin­ues to make prepa­ra­tions and put struc­tures in place to deal with the dead­ly Ebola if it lands on local soil, one gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er who is also a prac­ti­tion­er in alter­na­tive and com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine, is urg­ing health offi­cials to incor­po­rate indige­nous tra­di­tion­al heal­ers, com­mon­ly called obeah man/​woman, into their Ebola sen­si­ti­sa­tion exercise.

Dr Sonia Davidson has argued that, with no con­ven­tion­al med­ical cure for Ebola, it is not improb­a­ble that some­one affect­ed with the dis­ease could seek help from indige­nous tra­di­tion­al healers.

“I do think that, as part of the Ebola momen­tum, we should make it our busi­ness to find out every tra­di­tion­al heal­er any­where … . Find out who they are; have dis­cus­sions with them, because peo­ple can slip into the coun­try and go down to Clarendon, St Ann, St Thomas or Portland to see their obeah man and, don’t think is just poor peo­ple who do that, you know,” Davidson reasoned.

“This is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do what the World Health Organization has been telling us to do all along, find out where your indige­nous tra­di­tion­al heal­ers are, doc­u­ment them, relate to them and upgrade their prac­tices. Examine the con­di­tion in which they work and have them reg­is­tered,” she outlined.

Educate About Symptoms

According to Dr Davidson, it is crit­i­cal that these tra­di­tion­al heal­ers know about the symp­toms of Ebola because “by the time every­body goes down there and touch up and vom­it, him must know that there is a thing called Ebola and is not dup­py, and how Ebola is transmitted.”

She said a lot of health pro­fes­sion­als have told her that the first place an Ebola vic­tim would go after arriv­ing into the island would be the obeah man.

“If that is the case, how are you hav­ing all these meet­ings and train­ing and you don’t include the tra­di­tion­al heal­ers? We have to get off this elit­ist men­tal­i­ty,” the senior med­ical prac­ti­tion­er said.

Commenting on indige­nous tra­di­tion­al prac­tices in the con­text of alter­na­tive or com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine, Dr Davidson said the for­mer is a sub­group of the lat­ter. “It is a part of the cul­ture; you can’t dig it out — a part of the cul­ture where peo­ple go to obeah man.”

Discussing the deep-root­ed con­nec­tion between this indige­nous cul­ture and espe­cial­ly rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, Davidson stressed that the peo­ple are like­ly to con­sult these “heal­ers” first.

She said about 70 per cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion look to the tra­di­tion­al groups for their care, but the per­cent­age of Jamaicans who vis­it these per­sons is not con­sid­ered to be very high in Jamaica.  http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​4​1​1​2​4​/​l​e​a​d​/​l​e​a​d​1​.​h​tml

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Note to Dr, Davidson , I do not think that was what the World Health Organization had in mind when it said quote.

“find out where your indige­nous tra­di­tion­al heal­ers are, doc­u­ment them, relate to them and upgrade their prac­tices. Examine the con­di­tion in which they work and have them registered,”.

Just say­ing !!

Maybe the good­ly Dr, have been inhal­ing too much of that tra­di­tion­al chron­ic , no words.