TAMALE TRADITIONAL HEALERS ASSOCIATION INAUGURATED (PAGE 30)

A branch of the Ghana Traditional Healers Association has been inaugurated in the Tamale Metropolis with the primary objective of complementing the efforts of public health institutions to cure diseases in the area.
The association, which has a 13-member executive with Alhaji Fuseini Alhassan as its chairman, is also expected to help cure epilepsy and mental illness in the entire Northern Region.
The Regional Co-ordinator of Psychiatry, Mr John Abdulai Ibrahim, said from 1981 to date the region had recorded a total of 1,358 cases of epilepsy and mental illness.
He further explained that 848 cases were recorded for epilepsy and 510 for mental illness.
Mr Ibrahim mentioned insufficient provision of psychotropic and anticonvulsant drugs, stigmatisation of the mentally ill and epileptic patients as challenges to curing such patients and integrating them into the society.
He also expressed concern about the lack of logistics such as spare parts, fuel and adequate funds to facilitate periodic visits to patients at home as a way of monitoring their state of health and conditions.
The Administrator of the Basic Needs Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Mr Matthew Pipio, stated that the organisation was very much committed to the work of traditional healers.
“My outfit has since 2002 always worked closely with traditional healers; studies have shown that most people who fall sick first approach traditional healers for cure,” he pointed out.
Mr Pipio, therefore, stressed the need for the association to work in collaboration with other groups and bodies, as well as the mother association in Accra to facilitate the smooth running of the association in the north.
The administrator urged traditional healers to avoid all forms of negative practices that abused the human rights of patients who came to them to seek cure for their various illnesses.
“You must avoid acts like beating up the mentally ill persons, chaining them, as well as confining them in a place for long time, thereby making it difficult for them to be integrated into the society,” he advised.
The Programme Co-ordinator of the Gub-Katimali Society, Shiekh Yakubu Abdul-Kareem, said there was a correlation between the increasing number of kayayei and the prevalence of such diseases as HIV/AIDS, mental illness and drug addiction among people from Northern Ghana.