Health Care Practitioners’ Ambivalence about Traditional Healing: A Critical Reflection on the Findings of Maboe Mokgobi’s Dlitt Et Phil Study

Abstract

This paper deliberates on the findings of a doctoral study that investigated western-trained health care practitioners' views on traditional healing. The paper particularly focuses on the ambivalences that emerged in the responses of health care practitioners when they responded to questions relating to (1) whether they use the services of traditional healers, (2) whether they have knowledge of traditional healing, (3) whether they support traditional healing and (4) whether they would be willing to work with traditional healers in the future. For the benefit of the reader, the paper begins by presenting the executive summary of the DLitt et Phil study whose results are being reflected upon in this paper. The paper tapers off by suggesting that both the western healing and traditional healing systems could learn from each other although western-trained health care practitioners indicated a reluctance to work with traditional healers in the future. When comparing the views of different categories of western-trained health care practitioners, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses (as compared to general physicians and general nurses) appeared to be the most welcoming of the idea of working with traditional healers in the future.

Integrating traditional and allopathic child health: A healthcare transformation opportunity

“…Modern medicine was therefore more accepted than traditional medicines, and traditional health practitioners were gradually frowned upon by individuals of the Christian faith as found in this study. There was a similar finding in Mokgobi ( 2016 ). Prior to the advent of Christianity, people of South Africa made use of traditional healthcare practices, the same as in other neighbouring countries such as Botswana where the arrival of the Dutch Reformed, Seventh Day Adventist and Lutheran churches introduced modern medicine to the country (Togarasei, Mmolai & Kealotswe 2016 ).…”