Hundreds of traditional healers marched to the Union Buildings on Friday to demand an end to proposed laws that are aimed at regulating their profession without them being consulted.
The march was one of many similar marches which will take place countrywide as traditional healers want the government to treat them with due respect and recognition.
Marching under the banner of #NoRegulationsForHealersWithoutHealersMovement, the healers explained that the series of marches countrywide are a call to action against the marginalisation and exclusion of traditional healing practices in the country’s health care system and the proposed unconstitutional regulations imposed on them as healers.
Provincial Secretary General for healers in Gauteng Dr Oscar Esbie told Tshwane Talks at the Union Buildings on Friday that as healers they are not happy about the regulations imposed on them as healers and that it was not the first time that they have uttered their dissatisfaction in this regard.
He pointed out that they first raised their concerns in 2004, and again in 2015 and 2017 but on all occasions, they have been met with arrogance by the government and were ignored.
“All health professions in South Africa have council’s and we as traditional healers are supposed to have such a council as well, but the interim traditional healer’s council that has been established is based on exclusion,” said Dr Esbie.
He said this has led to a situation whereby there are no stakeholder relations between them as traditional healers and the national Department of Health.
“We can’t have intellectuals telling us about our profession as healers as this is impractical and senseless and we are here to tell the government that rather than indulging in fruitless expenditure it should instead redirect the money towards consulting traditional healers,” he said.
“The government can’t regulate the spirit, and it is best for all who are in positions of authority in the health sector to sit around a table with us so as to find ways to make our sector successful, this as we as traditional healers know best in this regard,” he said.
He stressed that at grassroots level when people have medical problems the first point of reference is the traditional healers and not the hospital, and why does the government want to ignore such an important stakeholder,” he asked.
Dr Esbie lamented the fact that as traditional healers they have to pay a R1000 registration fee in order to register with the interim traditional healer’s council.
He pointed out that in 2015 the registration fee was R100.
Dr Esbie emphasised that traditional healing is not a money-making opportunity and that they as healers must not be compared to people who claim to be healers while in fact, they are bogus practitioners who use different unnatural methods of healing people, which are not aligned to ancestory.
“These bogus healers, because they are rich, are the ones who have led the government to believe that we all have money as traditional healers, we don’t have money,” stressed Dr Esbie. (PARAGRAPH) He said unlike bogus practitioners, 90 % of healers in South Africa are not rich as they merely use natural means to heal people and not miracles, and that in some cases patience consult them without money and they heal them, nevertheless.
“We have healers sitting in the interim council of traditional healers and it is baffling that they have allowed the government to propose such an exorbitant amount of money as registration fee, this is nonsense,” he lamented.
He told Tshwane Talks that if one happens to be a trainer/ instructor or principal (gobela) of trainee healers then they must cough out a R5000 registration fee and R1 500 when they want to renew the lease see to work as gobelas, pointing out that this is absurd.
“These authorities don’t know the intricacies of being a gobela,” said Ebsie. ” We don’t want the use of seemingly sophisticated technical terminologies like training schools, training institutions because we have izindumba, period,” he said. The use of these technical terms creates a gap for corruption and allow every Tom, Dick and Harry to register as principal or gobela for trainee healers, even if they don’t have a calling to be healers in the first place,”
Their demands are as follows:
1. Lack of consultation regarding the drafting of policies that do not reflect their pra canctices and needs.
2. Abolition of the proposed culturally insensitive regulations which fail to respect and integrate the rich heritage and know ledge systems of traditional healing.
3. Abolition of restrictive regulations that undermine their ability to provide holistic and culturally relevant care to their communities.
4. Abolition of the new regulations as it is feared that they will negatively impact their livelihoods and accessibility to traditional healing services.
5. Abolition of the incompetent Council and African Traditional Medicine structures which have been formed within the Department of Health as they are regarded as ineffective and disconnected from the realities of traditional healing practices.
6. An end to attempts to westernise the traditional healing space by forcing healers to keep logbooks and patient files.
7. An end to the habit of organising limited roadshows at hotels, whereby only a few healers are hand-picked to attend, thus not representing the broader community of traditional healers.
8. An end to age restriction regulations, which may exclude experienced and knowledgeable healers.
9. An end to excessive annual registration fees which have increased significantly from the year 2015 to 2024, which are a substantial burden to some healers and may prevent some healers from registering as healers and thereby preventing them from practicing their professions.
10. Inclusion of educated health practitioners who in their own right are also medical doctors, lawyers and pharmacists in the posts that are available in the Traditional Health Practitioners Council, instead of filling such posts with people who are not healers.
Matters came to a head when the traditional healers refused to hand their memorandum of grievances to the official responsible for public liaison and stakeholder management at the Union Buildings Philemon Mahlangu, insisting that they wanted a Member of Parliament to receive their petition.
As no Member of Parliament was on sight, the traditional healers went back home with their petition and refused to submit it.