| dc.description.abstract | The process for the incorporation, integration or collaboration of traditional healers into
the National Health Care Delivery System of South Africa was marred by an array of
mixed attitudes from all the parties concerned, namely traditional healers, patients,
biomedical personnel, and the policy makers. The variety of approaches for inclusion of
the traditional healers into the National Health Care System of South Africa was a further
indication of the complexity of the situation. The possibility of functioning together
between traditional healers and biomedical personnel existed before 1990 when the two
groups met in Johannesburg in 1986 to discuss ways by which functioning together can
be established. A series of meetings and discussions followed after which came the
promulgation of the Chiropractors Homeopaths and Allied Health Services Professionals
Act of 1996, which gives traditional healers their due recognition but does not include
them as part of health care providers.
The process of functioning together is a recommendation made by the World Health
Organization and the most used terms for this functioning together is, incorporation,
integration and collaboration. The process of incorporation can be realised by ensuring
that both biomedical personnel and traditional healers remain autonomous, not
controlling each other, respecting the existence of one another, as well as each other's
own methods of healing.
Integration was another method whereby the two health care systems can function
together, even though integration differs in context from incorporation. Integration means
that the traditional healers will have to function within the health care system under the
directions of the biomedical personnel, whereby the patient receives a combination of
both treatment methods depending on the problem or diagnosis. The third modality of
getting the two health care systems to function together could be by collaboration.
Collaboration was seen as a two sided effort whereby the healing methods of one are
brought to fore and the most effective one is chosen to cure the patient's identified problem at that time. For the process of functioning together to be meaningful, it was
necessary to get the government to review licensing the traditional healer's practices, so
as to identify the healing techniques that are of value and use these to treat the patients.
It was not really possible to clearly separate the three approaches because they all
addressed the issue of having the two health care systems function together to increase
health care services and fulfil the patients' health needs. For the purpose of this research
the word incorporation was used.
In South Africa the traditional healer is identified as the health care choice of 80-9036 of
the black population. If this large number of black people uses traditional healing, then it
becomes necessary to investigate the manner in which the traditional healer can be
utilized effectively in the National Health Care Delivery System of South Africa to
render the services that the patient needs for his/her health needs. It is for this reason that
the researcher aimed at investigating the existing models of incorporation of traditional
healers, the perceptions and attitudes of the traditional healers, biomedical personnel,
patients and the policy makers regarding incorporation, their views on how this
incorporation should be achieved, as well as how the incorporation of traditional healers
into the National Health Care Delivery System of South Africa could be realised.
A qualitative research design and theory generating approach was followed, and the
research was conducted in two stages. In stage one qualitative research, participants were
traditional healers, biomedical personnel, patients and policy makers, selected by means
of non-probable purposive voluntary sampling. Data was collected by means of
conducting semi-structured interviews with all the participants in the three identified
provinces of South Africa. Field notes were recorded after each interview session. Data
analysis was achieved by open coding. A co-coder and the researcher analysed the data
independently after which consensus discussions took place to finalise the analysed data.
Ethical principles were applied according to the guidelines of the Democratic Nurses
Organisation of South Africa and the Department of Health. The second stage which was a theory generation approach, was used to formulate a model for the incorporation of the
traditional healers into the National Health Care Delivery System of South African. | |
