Distinguish Yourselves, Ethnomedicine Practitioners Urge Members
To safeguard the health of Nigerians and to bring affordable healthcare delivery services, Ethnomedicine practitioners have been urged to distinguish themselves in their chosen career as against quacks that have invaded the health sector.
The charge was given at the first edition of the 2018 Ethnomedicine Day by the President General, Ibusa Community, Dr. Austin Izagbo, who described ethnomedicine as traditional medicine that has its root to “our forefathers”, with evidence based practice, held at Federal Government Girls College, Ibusa, Oshimili north local government area, Delta State.
Dr Izagbo, commended the state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, for his encouragement, support and contributions in repositioning of the country’s health sector with the signing into law the bill that gave recognition to the practice of ethnomedicine in Nigeria during the 7th National Assembly.
Izagbo, who was the chairman of the occasion, charged the International Academy of Ethnomedicine to distinguish themselves and fight against quacks, saying that there are quacks in all profession in the society.
The Project Director, World Ethnomedicine Day, Dr. Benjamin Ajufo, said that ethnomedicine is the comparative study of the different medical system of the indigenous people.
He said that ethnomedicine is the mother of all medicine; Dr Ajufo condemned those calling traditional medicine as alternative medicine by the modern medicine.
“We commenced this celebration with a free Medical Outreach to this community and its immediate environs with the support of the team of professors”.
He said that ethnomedicine has been in existence before conventional medicine, “it has been derogated in the past but today, it is part of primary healthcare management”.
The Chancellor, Nyarkotey College of Holistic Medicine Tema Ghana and keynote Speaker, Prof. Nyarkotey Obu, lamented the manner the traditional medicine was derogated in the past especially among health managers.
Prof. Nyarkotey who spoke on the theme: “Evidence Based Ethnomedical Practice, The Cardinal Tool in Achieving The Goals Of Universal Health Coverage For Economic Growth, Maximum Productivity And Sustainability”, said when he started prostate cancer research and promoting evident based ethnomedicine in Ghana, he was not taken serious “no one believed me but along the line, they have no option but believe it because of the evidence”.
He said that the conventional treatment for cancer is failing because cancer is a very smart disease with proteins covering them, saying that “we need to decode this protein from them. Medicine itself is an imperfect science and until we move from text book medicines and practice evidence based medicine we will have lots of challenges in winning the war on cancer and others”.
The Chancellor noted that why the authorities forbid ethnomedicine was because they are serving industry and the industry cannot make money with herbs, vitamins, and homeopathy.
“They cannot patent natural remedies. That is why they are able to tell medical schools what they can and cannot teach. They have their own sets of law, and they force people into them. This sensational also uncover the truth behind vaccines, AIDS, cancer”, he said
Other speakers, who added their voices, complemented the fact that natural medicine certainly does not kill the patient, unlike many of lethal side-effects of drug used by modern medicine, not to mention the negative consequences of surgery and radiation.