A law to regulate traditional healers in South Africa has been passed by parliament to acclaim from the predominantly black parliamentarians, who are relieved that a widely practised form of health care in the country will be officially recognised.
The law seeks to regulate the practice and practitioners in much the same way as doctors and other health practitioners are now. An interim council will be set up within three months to begin the process of finding healers, setting standards, categorising the different types of healers, and beginning the process of registration—and, by definition, exclusion.
The Traditional Health Practitioners Act seeks to protect the public (an estimated 80% of black people in South Africa use the services of traditional healers) by ensuring good standards, proper training, and ethical behaviour. A rough estimate is that the country has around 20 000 traditional practitioners, many of whom are unlikely to have learned the practice in a traditional setting, whereby skills are passed down through the generations.
Figure 1.
South African healers will eventually be recognised as healthcare professionals
Credit: ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
One section in the new law prohibits unregistered healers from claiming cures or relief for cancer or HIV or AIDS. Advertising fliers as well as newspaper advertisements proclaim cures for these diseases by self proclaimed traditional healers. Doctors and health experts worry that these advertisements, by encouraging patients to try traditional methods, cause delays in the uptake of Western treatment.
The health department is also seeking to register and standardise traditional medicines and “health” preparations. This is a long term project and is likely to meet fierce resistance, as even the first moves to make vitamin and herbal products go through the same kind of tests as other medicines has resulted in protests.
Parliamentarians voting on the measure in September to regulate traditional healers were influenced by the problems that have developed over the past few years with informal and unskilled “circumcision schools” that annually kill and maim scores of young men. The law aims to provide greater protection for consumers.
It caused a flurry of concern, however, in the health insurance business, which is worth some 50 billion rand a year (£4.3bn; $7.8bn; €6.4bn), because some insurers thought that their funds would be depleted by clients claiming for treatment from traditional healers.