Traditional Healers

Traditional Healers to Become "Health Professionals"?
Doctors For Life, representing over one thousand health practitioners in South Africa, stands for the practice of medicine that is based on evidence and the highest ethics. DFL is convinced that any form of medicine that is not based on empiric truth is potentially (and ultimately) harmful to patients in need.

DFL's presentation before the parliamentary committee on Traditional Health Practitioners objected to the government's plan to register “Traditional Healers” as medical practitioners on the following grounds:

​1. Traditional medical practices have, over time, not improved the survival of children, or mothers in birth, or patients;

2. Most of the medicines used by traditional practitioners have not been validated scientifically;

3. Many people suffer because of the serious complications (side-effects) that arise due to the use of traditional medicines;

4. As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), most traditional health practitioners make use of "intangible forces" ("spirits") in their practice of healing.

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