CONGO REPUBLIC/NIGERIA: Traditional healers incorporate modern methods in the Republic of Congo

Record ID: 452174

  • Title: CONGO REPUBLIC/NIGERIA: Traditional healers incorporate modern methods in the Republic of Congo
  • Date: 25th April 2009
  • Summary: DOLISIE, CONGO REPUBLIC (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS VIEWS OF DOLISIE REFERRAL HOSPITAL VARIOUS OF MALOMBE ENTERING HOSPITAL VARIOUS OF MALOMBE ATTENDING TO PATIENTS VARIOUS OF MALOMBE SHOPPING AT A TRADITIONAL MEDICINE STALL
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVACCJ0TDXATXOG14GYHOT46FR5T
  • Story Text: Civil wars in the Congolese Republic during the 1990s destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. With so few hospitals and doctors, people are turning to traditional healers, even with major injuries. The government is now trying to improve patient care by encouraging traditional healers to take on modern methods.
    At an abandoned school in the Congolese Republic, around 35 patients are being treated for fractures.
    Bertheline Malombe or Mama Bertheline, as she's known here, runs this improvised private clinic; she's a traditional healer who specialises in orthopaedics or bone injuries.
    There are currently 16 patients who live at the clinic. 14-year-old Juvelia Boungou is one of them. She got an open fracture after a serious motorcycle accident. Juvelia has been treated for a year and though she still limps she says she is fully recovered.

    "Some soldiers took us to hospital, but my injuries were too severe - for three days I didn't receive proper treatment. So they wanted to take us to Pointe-Noire, but my parents preferred to bring me here to Mama Bertheline," said Malombe.
    Mama Bertheline practises in the small town of Dolisie, just over 100 kilometres away from Pointe Noire, the Congo Republic's second largest city.
    She's been a healer since she was 15, learning from her mother who practices the same trade and who still works with her.
    Her son Evrard, also helps out, but he cannot become a bone-healer himself because traditionally the practice is only passed on from mother to daughter.
    What sets Malombe apart is that she mixes traditional with modern methods.
    She disinfects the wounds with western pharmaceuticals; then treats the fracture using ancient massaging techniques, and herbal remedies to ease the pain.The fractured limb is then supported using modern splinting methods.
    She learnt all this by training at a conventional hospital.
    Similar clinics can be found in other Africa countries - like Nigeria - where many claim to have recovered after having their bones traditionally set.
    But modern medical practitioners are sceptical about the methods used.
    Dr. Sunny Gbenga is a orthopaedic surgeon who believes these traditional healers are not properly trained and that patients they treat eventually go back to using modern medicine.

    "You would be surprised the number of patients that have been there but eventually end up in the government hospital, looking for conventional orthopaedic therapy," added Gbenga.
    But not all can get the conventional help they need. Countries like the Congolese Republic lack medical professionals. The World Health Organisation estimates there are only two registered physicians for every 10,000 people and annual government spending on healthcare per person is only around 15 dollars.
    The Dolisie Referral Hospital used to have a capacity for 250 patients, before civil war in the 1990s reduced it to a shadow of its former self.
    That makes traditional healers all the more important and there are now plans to incorporate their services, such as herbalists, phlebotomists and ritualists into mainstream hospitals.
    80 per cent of the population in Congo resort to traditional medicine, according to the World Health Organisation in Congo.
    Malombe spends three days a week at the hospital, seeing patients there.
    Her ability to combine traditional with modern healing methods has spread her fame throughout the region and her services are in high demand.
    But her treatment is costly; patients pay from about 100 US dollars for a simple fracture, and up to 300 US dollars for a compound fracture.
    Yet few of her patients complain about the cost, even if it is a lot of money for many Congolese families to raise.
    Malombe's job doesn't just involve orthopaedics; she also shops and cooks for the patients living at her clinic. She also buys ingredients for her concoctions, since a lot of what she does remains mystical, secrets of an age-old trade.
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