Tema Gets Multi-Million Cedi Herbal Centre

A multi-million cedi Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture Centre has been inaugurated at the Narh-Bita Hospital in Tema, with a call on the Ministry of Health to expedite action on the certification of qualified herbal medical practitioners throughout the country and the stringent regulation of their practice.

Orthodox physicians and practitioners of herbal medicine who attended the inauguration ceremony said the certification of qualified practitioners of herbal medicine was necessary to weed out quacks and facilitate the effective integration of herbal medical practice in the country’s health delivery.

Such a step by the Ministry of Health would also bring trust and respect to herbal medical practitioners, they added. The Medical Director of the Narh-Bita Hospital, Dr Edward Narh, said about 50 per cent of the country’s population had no access to orthodox medical care.

“We at Narh-Bita have, therefore, decided not to frown on complementary or alternative medicine but to embrace it because there are now highly qualified practitioners of herbal medicine to help promote our vision of providing holistic and cost-effective medical services,” Dr Narh stated.

He said the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi had started running degree programmes for medical herbalists to improve the quality and efficacy of herbal medical practice, adding that some of the products of the programme were already practising as medical herbalists.

“This is not the kind of herbal practice people have been used to. The centre will not be requesting patients to bring fowls, cola nuts, calico, needles and such items to access treatment,” Dr Narh noted.

The Acupuncture Department of the centre is headed by Dr Li Dong, while the Herbal Medicine Department is headed by a medical herbalist, Mr Samuel Osei Kwarteng.

Mr Kwarteng explained that medical herbalists were awarded degrees in herbal medicine from KNUST after a four-year professional course.

He said the course was devoted to the clinical sciences, namely, human physiology and anatomy, pharmacology, pathology, diagnostic skills, clinical medicine, clinical training and biochemistry.

After graduation, he said, medical herbalists were required to undergo a two-year clinical rotation as part of the mandatory internship involving training in clinical and diagnostic techniques, laboratory practices, herbal medicine research and the production and dispensing of herbal medicines.

The medical herbalist said the use of herbs to treat diseases was now almost universal among non-industrialised societies throughout the world.

“The World Health Organisation estimates that 80 per cent of the world’s population, especially in African and Asian countries, use herbal medicines for some aspect of primary health care due to the accessibility, affordability, efficacy and relative safety of herbal medicines when correctly used,” he explained.

He admitted that because herbal medicines contained combinations of various active ingredients, each with a specific action, some of them were capable of causing allergic reactions.

Some of such reactions, he added, could create unwanted or unexpected results when combined with conventional drugs.

He, therefore, appealed to pharmacists, medical doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals in the nation’s health facilities to collaborate with medical herbalists in the use of herbs to manage illnesses.

For her part, Dr Dong said acupuncture had played an important role in medical care and health delivery for hundreds of years.

She said other therapeutic applications related to acupuncture, such as acupuncture anaesthesia, had now emerged from medical research, adding greater importance to acupuncture in medical delivery.

Dr Dong said acupuncture had proved very effective in the treatment of diseases of the heart, ear, eye, face, chest, nose, throat, teeth, lungs and arms.

Acupuncture was effectively employed in the treatment of mental disorders, she added.

Author : George Sydney Abugri & Dela Russel Ocloo