Text of the keynote address by Professor Olukemi Odukoya of
the Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lagos at
theAfrican Traditional Medicine Day Celebration organised by Lagos State
Traditional Medicine Board.
Mr Halfdan Mahler (1978) a former Director General of the
WHO stated as follows: We at the WHO pledge ourselves to an ambitious target,
to provide health for all by the year 2000. This ambitious goal is quite simply
beyond the scope of the present health care system and personnel trained in
modern medicine.
Note that the main Target is health! Not for one household
but for All! Through Primary Health care!
The importance of traditional medicine as a source of
primary health care was first officially recognised by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) in the Primary Health Care (PHC) Declaration of Alma Ata in
the former USSR (1978) and has been globally addressed since 1976 by the
Traditional Medicine Programme of the WHO.
That Programme define traditional medicine as: The sum total
of all the knowledge and practices, whether explicable or not, used in
diagnosis, prevention and elimination of physical, mental or social imbalance
and relying exclusively on practical experience and observation handed down
from generation to generation, whether verbally or in writing.
This approach was endorsed by the International Conference
on Primary Health Care. The declaration of Alma Ata, in describing PHC,
referred to the need for a variety of health workers including Traditional
Medical Practitioners (TMP's) who are suitably trained socially and technically
to work as a health team and to respond to the expressed needs of the
community. TMP's include: herbalists, bone setters, TBA's traditional
psychiatrists, spiritual healers and other specialists. These traditional
practitioners are recognised in some countries by the community as providers of
health care who use herbs, animal and mineral substances and certain other
methods.
Lagos State Government has been the pace-setter in the
adherence to the Alma-Ata declaration with the establishment of the first
Traditional Medicine Board in 1980 by Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande's
administration; the law has been reviewed over and over to meet the challenges
of modern day trend in the practice of traditional medicine, with the
inauguration of board members of Traditional Medicine Board which is to
implement the Lagos State Health sector reform law as it affects the practice
of Traditional Medicine in the State.
Vital role of traditional medicine in PHC:
The traditional system of medicine is engrained in our
culture, and a large population of the Nigerian population depends on this
indigenous system for relief.
About 80 per cent of the people in the developing world
depend on traditional medicine for primary health care. This is due to the fact
that orthodox medicine is mostly out of reach in both physical terms as
hospitals are far away from the rural populace and in financial terms, the
poverty level is high. Solutions to economic problems are therefore seriously
hampered by poverty and ignorance to diseases.
The relative ratios of traditional practitioners and
University-trained doctors in relation to the whole population in African
countries are revealing. In Ghana, for example, in Kwahu district, for every
traditional practitioner there are 224 people, compared to one university
trained doctor for nearly 21,000 people. The same applies to Swaziland where
the ratios are 110 people for the number of traditional practitioners, in Tanzania
it is 30,000 to 40,000 in
comparison to 600 medical doctors. In Malawi, there are 17,000 traditional
medical practitioners and only 35 conventional medical doctors in practice.
Where are we in Nigeria with records?
The work force presented by Traditional Medicine
Practitioners (TMPs) and traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) is an important
resource for the delivery of PHC. Over two-thirds of births are delivered by
local or traditional midwives or TBAs. In some rural areas, TBAs are the only
source of assistance and care and deliver over 90 per cent of the births.
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