Legal status for healers on the cards

Traditional healers may soon be given the same legal status as Western medical practitioners if a new Bill to be introduced in parliament later this year is adopted. This was said at KwaDukuza (Stanger) on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast this week by the KZN Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize. He was addressing a workshop to gather submissions for the Bill.

But Mkhize said that while most of the traditional healers were law-abiding, responsible members of the community, stern measures would be taken against those who were found to be charlatans. In addition, steps would be taken against those who procured human tissue for use as "muti" or "ukucwiya" or practitioners who spread infection through razor blades or puncturing the skin. Mkhize said experimenting on human patients and their privacy would not be tolerated.

The minister said that, in terms of submissions drawn up by the KZN Health Department, consent to treatment by a traditional healer was an agreement between the patient and the traditional healer. The Department could not be held responsible for any mismanagement of the patient. He said that, in the event of any breach of contract in the form of treatment failure, or need for litigation, the KZN Department of Health or any government department could not be held responsible, nor could it be sued.

It was up to the patient to make his or her choice freely to be treated by a traditional healer and he or she would seek legal remedy in the event of anything going wrong. Mkhize said his Department believed that the two systems - the Western system and the traditional healers' sytem - should be separated. The public health system would adopt the Western medical model and the patient would make his or her choice as to which system to use.

He said a lot of ground still needed to be covered by the Interim Traditional Healers' Council before decisions regarding working within the same system could be finalised. Mkhize said issues such as the recognition of medical certificates issued by traditional healers and the recognition of traditional healers by medical aid schemes were still being investigated. He said the conservation of nature and the environment and the protection of endangered plant species were important elements of the proposed new legislation.