Comments on the regulations defining the scope of the profession of medicine

 

From: Dr Marius Herholdt (Vice President Natural Healers Association Gauteng) and Council for Counsellors in SA.

 

Private Bag 15509

Sinoville 0129

 

Tel. 0861114994

Fax  012 5485943

 

To:  The Director-General

Department of Health

Attention: Human Resource Stakeholder relations and Management

 

Dear Minister

 

We strongly object to the proposed regulations on the following grounds:

 

1. The biomedical model on which medical care is based is not the only valid and acceptable model to serve as a foundation for good and effective health care. As you will surely know the emerging holistic model of health care is an extension of the philosophy inherent in traditional healing and has been proven to serve communities well for ages.  The pathological aetiology of  the bio-medical model (viz. single pathogen cause) differs vastly form that of natural health care where disease is seen as an imbalance (and blockage) of some kind.
2. The focus of health care, as you will realize, is now on wellbeing and no longer on the treatment of disease alone. There is a vast difference between the enhancement of health and the treatment of disease. Surely medical intervention has its place, but in its limited scope does not fully cover wellness as health  enhancement.  Wellbeing is a much broader concept and is not only the  absence of disease, but the harmony and integration of emotional, mental, social and spiritual realms of existence (WHO).  This comprehensive approach surely leaves room for health care professionals, such as complementary healers!
3. The WHO, as you also well know, supports the contribution of traditional healers to primary health care.  You have also, dear Minister, been quoted as a supporter of this perspective.  How will the new regulations restrict traditional healers and complementary health care workers? 
4. With the vast need to provide adequate health care to the peoples of SA, will the new regulations not seriously undermine this initiative?  I respectfully remind you that the 1985 initiative of the Ministers of Health of the African region of the World Health Organization was a shift of emphasis to community health care in an effort to improve the situation.  This resulted in the Bamako initiative in 1987 with the objective strengthen and improve health services by implementing a delivery system, especially at district and local level.  The underlying philosophy was one of providing “ownership of the health care services” to the people of the community (Dennil et al  1999: 30).  This is exactly the role of traditional healers.
5. Disease patterns today are strongly life style related. In 1991,  the International Forum on health was held in Accra, Ghana where the focus was on the total social well-being as prerequisite for health care. The findings of the Accra initiative was that “Developed countries, however, are not exempt from health problems. Excessive  lifestyles and overburdened environments produce vulnerable groups with health problems that must be addressed”  (Dennil et al  1999: 30).  This emphasises the fact that a country’s development strategy  ultimately determines the health status of the community.  We need more participants than medical doctors and nurses to help address this issue. Now you are on the verge of eliminating this source of help.
6. It is accepted today by sociologists that “Disease patterns and death rates are related to patterns of social inequality. They are not just biological facts, they are also social facts”  (Popenoe et al  et al  1998:222).  Biomedicine has neglected the impact of mental well-being and the impact of social conditions on our physical health.  Can alternative health care which follows a more holistic approach help rectify this situation?  I believe so. In 2006 we managed to institute a post graduate course at North West University (Vaal Triangle Campus) in Medical Sociology.   Our students were keen to become participants in the health care arena.  The new regulations are very discouraging for them. 
7. We have been in natural health care training for the past decade and have many case studies of  people with chronic degenerative diseases who have been helped by the practice of complementary modalities which will now be closed should the new regulations  become implemented. I plead with you Minister not to close this avenue of help to people who have no access and financial means to depend on western medicine.
8. As both social scientists and natural scientists we can assure you that complementary therapies are in line with emerging post-modern epistemologies and scientific discoveries.  This includes a study of medicine on the levels of information, energy, quantum, psycho-somatic, and meridian theory providing us with very effective regimens based on bio-resonance, applied kinesiology, herbalism and myriads of modalities. Surely these practices also need regulation, but we are anxiously awaiting legislation that will enable these selfless healers to eventually become legitimate practitioners.
9. Many breakthroughs in medical care, I believe, can come from the domain of complementary health care.  The paradigm shifts taking place globally are rendering 5000 year old practices such as acupuncture good possibilities to pursue. Let us not allow the one sided positivistic epistemology and scientific empiricism to dictate our only understanding of reality.  Quantum research yielded evidence that reality is much more weird and evasive than we ever thought. I believe that natural healers have the uncanny ability to tap into intuitive sources of healing. This is only criticized by people who do not understand that their may be other epistemic ways of knowing. Unfortunately these people can also not, if consistent with their narrow epistemology, afford to be religious! 
10. Wellness places the responsibility for healing on the proactive choice and participation.  This new approach necessitates that “in today’s health care delivery services it is necessary to substitute ‘skills for pills’ as dramatic advances in medical knowledge and high technology medicine heighten the need to return to an approach which recognizes that people function as part of a system and that both patient and system should be treated accordingly”  (Schlebusch 1990:4).  The proposed regulations take this away and places health care again in the domain of medicalization and authority that is no longer politically tenable on global scale.
11. Holism and everything that it stands for is a break with the western tradition of a Cartesian split and Newtonian physics that resulted in a secularized society, mechanical reductionism and  linear causality (Fritjof Capra – The Turning Point).  I believe that this transition marks a new epoch in human development as evidenced by its expression in natural health care.  Unfortunately the proposed regulations do not honour this development and takes us back to the 17^th century in terms of philosophical understanding.  Natural health care is no longer suspect, on the contrary it is commensurate with the latest research finding in various academic disciplines. Natural healers are no longer simply “bossie dokters”.
12. Due to the fact that that the shift in thinking that gives us natural health care, is a universal phenomenon, many medical and conventional health care workers are increasingly turning to alternative therapies. This wave is also amplified by iatrogenic factors such as that natural medicine is less invasive, have lesser side effects, is more affordable, etc. Natural health care is community owned – it represents a grass roots initiative of medicine by the people to the people. Please do not stifle this spontaneous democratic movement. It promises many beautiful breakthroughs. It is a book filled with by many stories of help and hope. It is punctuated by healing episodes and relieve from suffering.  It is a chronicle  that cannot be closed by the  institution of rigid regulatory measures.  It may only stir up terribly negative emotions, frustrations and much unhappiness.  I do hope it will not come to this.

 

I thank you for you attention and pray that it may help guide you in the final decision.

 

Signed: Marius Herholdt