Healers play an important part in KwaZulu-Natal

The Provincial HIV/AIDS Action Unit (PAAU) in KwaZulu-Natal has established one of the most successful HIV/AIDS partnerships with traditional healers.

The Province now has well over 17 500 trained traditional healers. This makes KwaZulu-Natal one of the few places where traditional healers are an integral part of government strategy. This collaborative effort has ensured that KwaZulu-Natal ranks among those with the highest number of healers trained in the field of HIV/AIDS.

A PAAU staff member and the co-ordinator for the programme to train traditional healers, Margreth Shangase, says: ?“The involvement of traditional healers in a province like KwaZulu-Natal is central to the work of educating and mobilising communities?”.

The campaign to involve traditional healers in the mainstream government programme to combat HIV/AIDS has found a lot of support from KwaZulu-Natal healers, who turn up in great numbers at each training workshop.

At a workshop earlier this year, 170 healers attended an HIV/AIDS training run by the Provincial HIV/AIDS Action Unit (PAAU). After completing this training, healers were awarded certificates by the Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize at a ceremony which took place at Eshowe, north of Durban.

Thirty of these healers have also completed a capacity-building course. The course assists healers in income-generating projects ?– an essential aspect of the training, because most of the healers are unemployed.

One of these healers trained in capacity-building, Sipho Bhengu, has already benefited from the training and is now a project manager in Kwamaphumulo.

Once trained, healers are expected to join others who have undergone similar training in educating not only their clients ?– which they are encouraged to do ?– but also in giving correct advice to their colleagues regarding HIV/AIDS. This includes referrals to the relevant health facilities.

Along with traditional healers, PAAU has also engaged traditional birth attendants as important roleplayers in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Here, too, the Unit has received great support from the community.

At the Eshowe event, Dr Mkhize also awarded certificates to 66 traditional birth attendants, who help with emergency home deliveries. The attendants are given up-to-date training in home deliveries.

Shangase, who is responsible for the training, says that home deliveries are not encouraged, ?“but in some rural areas transport to health institutions is not easily accessible?”.

?”Traditional birth attendants are necessary in such cases. They need to have been trained in how to conduct a safe delivery and must know when and where to refer the mother afterwards,?” she said.