Cameroon: Traditional Medicine Day - Experts Focus on Patient's Security, Privacy.
The 7th edition of African Traditional Medicine Day was commemorated yesterday...
The 7th edition of African Traditional Medicine Day was commemorated yesterday in Yaounde.
Cameroon joined the rest the African continent to mark the 2009 African Traditional Medicine Day yesterday with focus on traditional practitioners to carryout their activities in favourable and secure conditions while protecting the confidentiality of the patients they treat. At an event organised by the Ministry of Public Health in Yaounde, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Public Health, Alim Hayatou, said traditional medicine has no danger because of natural history, but the manner in which traditional practitioners use the medicines can provoke undesirable circumstances to users.
Alim Hayatou said while the government is in the process of passing a law that will bind the practice of traditional medicine in Cameroon, traditional practitioners themselves should respect the ethics of the profession and set their own modus operandi by respecting the required doses in preparing any medicine, respect the privacy of their patients, be truthful in what they know and do and protect the population against inappropriate practices such as asking people to drink their urine as a means of treating kidney problems.
Focusing on the theme of celebration "Traditional Medicine and Patient's Security", the Director of the Institute of Medical Research on the study of Medicinal Plants (IMPM), of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation, Jean Louis Essame Oyono, lectured traditional practitioners on when to integrate traditional medicine while avoiding risk to patients. He noted that traditional medicine occupies a choice place in the treatment of patients in Africa and, as such, there must be a firm law to put order in its practice. For, when wrongly used, traditional medicine can cause death. Reason why Essame Oyono urged traditional practitioners to respect the standard and ethics of the profession while shunning bad practices such as carrying out abortions, surgery, injecting patients as well as using witchcraft methods in treating patients. The Director of IMPM stressed that traditional practitioners should be specialised in treating just an illness or illnesses that fall in the same group and not all diseases. He insisted that traditional practitioner must promote the best knowledge in pharmacopoeia while ameliorating research efforts in traditional medicine.
On behalf of traditional medical practitioners, Edward Fai Fominyen, said the fight against charlatans in the field of traditional medicine is firmly on their action plan, as such people put the lives of patients at risk. He added that the training of traditional health practitioners is also one of their goals to enhance their abilities to lead and manage formal centres of traditional medicine for the benefit of the population. Brenda Yufehhttp://www.cameroon-tribune.net