Andre Duvenhage

The education and training levels of the South African traditional healer: a present-day perspective

Background The traditional healer in Southern Africa received new status as a statutorily recognized health professional with the promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007). Usually such recognition is only awarded after a profession’s formal education in the form of established study programmes and training and places of learning has been confirmed. Lawmakers involved in the promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 failed to confirm the existence of such an education culture and foundation. Very little can be gauged from the formal literature on the kind and the quality of the training that the traditional healers receive and their abilities to diagnose and treat without risk to the lives of patients. The prominent question at this stage is whether traditional healers’ levels of education and training meet the minimum requirements prescribed for health professionals in the healthcare sector. Aims The present study aimed to determine the education and training levels of practicing South African traditional healers. Methods This is an exploratory and descriptive study based on the modern historical approach of investigation and literature reviewing. The emphasis is on using present-day documentation, like articles and reports, books and newspapers, as primary sources to reflect on the present status and levels of traditional healers’ education and training. The findings are offered in narrative form. Results No formally established education and training infrastructure has ever been developed for the South African traditional healing profession. Up to 2007, there was also no governmental support in this regard. A formal education and training system is still in its infancy. There is, however, a well-established informal training system that developed over many years. Conclusion The absence of an advanced and statutorily recognized education and training system can make the immediate change-over from traditional healing as an unregulated endeavour to a profession and acceptance of the traditional healer as part of the healthcare establishments, very difficult and problematic. Over against this, there is a functioning informal training system exists, confirming that minimum levels of education and training are present.

The present and future roles of Traditional Health Practitioners within the formal healthcare sector of South Africa, as guided by the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007)

Background The promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007) was seen as the long awaited start-up of the traditional healing profession in South Africa. Act No 22 (2007) was strongly politically driven from the late 1960s onward. Many of these political motivators were based upon outdated cultural ideas, customs and traditions, rooted outside the modern day healthcare needs and demands of the particular population that traditional healing intends to serve. An in-depth needs and skills analysis, to test the viability and sustainability of the South African traditional healers as well as their positions and roles as health practitioners inside the formal healthcare sector, as guided and stipulated by the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007), was lacking in this early development and start-up process. This resulted in the traditional healers’ present and future roles as specific healthcare practitioners being both undefined and insufficiently formulated. In addition their existing education, training, skills and abilities to compete in the formal healthcare sector were ignored. Therefore, since the promulgation of the Act in 2007, there was limited professional-development for traditional healers, to improve their immediate professionalism and thus to promote effective role-playing and management in the formal healthcare sector. The South African traditional healing professional model is still in the foundational stage of its professional development; a stage which the other registered/regulated healthcare practitioners of the country surpassed long ago, making them well-equipped for role-playing and management as health professionals in the formal healthcare sector. The whole venture of the statutory recognition of the traditional health practitioners in 2007 as new healthcare professionals with the promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007) seems to increasingly be a failure. There is thus a definite need to establish how the South African traditional healers are equipped to compete independently in the healthcare sector. If this is not possible, what alternatives are available to steer some of them into the country’s healthcare sector and still make them useful as health practitioners. Coupled to this need is the future status and role of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007), to uphold the roles of traditional healers. Aims The study aims to determine the present and future roles of the traditional health practitioner in the South African formal healthcare sector, as guided by the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007).

The present-day diagnosis and treatment model of the South African traditional healer

Background At present, no formal guides or curricula exist to direct and instruct diagnosis and treatment in the practice of the traditional healer. To gain knowledge of how the traditional healer makes diagnoses and offers treatment, the researcher has to rely on the reflections in the literature as well as writings and communications offered by a few authors and the traditional healer organizations. These materials are sometimes insufficient and even misleading and cannot serve as trustworthy information in isolation. Aims The present study is aimed at determining and describing the present diagnosis and treatment model of the traditional healer. Methods This is an exploratory and descriptive study in line with the modern-day historical approach of investigation and reviewing research. The emphasis is on the study of present-day documentation, like articles, books and newspapers as primary resources to reflect on the development and promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act No 22 (2007). By implementing this approach, new information can be uncovered on the present-day diagnosis and treatment model of the traditional healer. The findings are offered in narrative format. Results The regulations and definitions of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act (Act No 22, 2007) is not effective in evaluating the procedure of diagnosis and treatment of the present day traditional healer, as this act, being promulgated in 2007, is applicable to diagnosis practices and training processes still to be developed. Conclusion A traditional healthcare model based on scientific research to guide and teach the student of traditional healing and about diagnosis and treatment is non-existent in South Africa. Traditional leaders acquire their current knowledge and understanding of the diagnosis and treatment through various doubtful ways of learning, mostly verbally and in practice from unqualified traditional healing masters or tutors. This means that the pre-modern traditional health know-hows, styles and approaches which are being offered, differ immensely in standards from tutor to tutor.

Unsaid new practice rights of the traditional health practitioner, as guided by Act No 22 (2007) of South Africa

Background In 2007, a practice directive was issued for the new legal entity traditional health practitioner with the promulgation of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act (No 22 of 2007) in the Republic of South Africa. Although the Act describes this new pathway in terms of various definitions, the future practice rights and impact on healthcare were left undefined and unwritten. To date the negative legal implications and career consequences that the Act has for the regulated health practitioners, have gone unnoticed. The derogation and degrading of their work domains and rights, seem of no concern. 1 Aims The aim of the present study is to determine and describe the unwritten new practice rights of the traditional health practitioner. Methods This is an exploratory and descriptive study in line with the modern historical approach of investigation by means of a literature review. The emphasis is on using documentation such as articles, books and newspapers as primary resources to reflect on the traditional health practitioner’s new unsaid and unwritten future practice rights.