Medicina Tradicional y Naturopatía Clínica

Abstracto

Capacity Buildings of Traditional Medicine Practitioners’ as a Primary Health Care Workers in Gondar Town, Northwest Ethiopia

Abyot E, Zewdu B, Tefera A, Mohammedberhan AW and Mulugeta F

Background: Traditional medicine has a crucial role in building the health system in developing country. The World Health Organization also recognized traditional medicine as a vital health-care resourcein developing countries and has encouraged governments to adopt policies to officiallyacknowledge and regulate the practice of traditional medicine. Moreover, many of the pharmaceutical products used in modern medicine, have directly or indirectly derived from the knowledge of traditional medicine. However, in many countries,including Ethiopia, there is acritical lack of cooperation between conventional and traditional medicine practitioners. Objective: This project was aimed to enhance the capacity of traditional health practitioners’ as primary health workers in the aforementioned town for the betterment of qualityservices to the community. Implementation: As the project was new, we were used participatory methods. Prior to actual training, half day sensitization meeting was held with respective stake holders. A total of 28 traditional health practitioners’ were trained for five consecutive days, from May 08 to 12, 2013. During these days, topics such as global situation of traditional medicine, methods of herbal drug preparation, cultivation and sustainable use of medicinal plants, acquisition of traditional medical knowledge, HIV care and prevention, handling and referring of patients, regulation and ethics in traditional medicine were intensively discussed. Apart from the training, mortar and pestle and measuring cylinder was also given for each trainee. Project output: During evaluative research in January 2014, significant improvement in quality of traditional medicine practice in Gondar town was obtained. All trained healers uses mortar and pestle for preparation of potions. Majority (75%) started cultivation of medicinal plants at their home. Trained traditional healers gained knowledge on the health and traditional medicine policy of Ethiopia. Increased positive attitude towards ethical principle and patient handling were also obtained. Conclusion: The practitioners’ are eager to adopt standard methods and willing to collaborate with modern medicine. It is therefore desirable to extend such type of project nationally for better health.