Traditional healthcare exists everywhere in Kenyan communities. It is a product of social institutions and cultural traditions that have evolved over many centuries to enhance health. Traditional medicine endeavours to meet health needs in the historical, geographical and cultural context in which is placed. It is estimated that about 80% of the Kenyan population use some form of traditional medicine. In this regard, traditional medicine is modern is modern medicine, but it has the handicap of being stagnant and does not utilize the benefits of modern science, whether orally transmitted or resulting from personal experiences, runs the risk of being lost, just as Kenya is disclosing itself to the world and to history. People in organizations and out of organization hold a lot of experience which are not well advertised. Some of them are related to their professional role, others are personal. It is amazing what talents you can unearth when you network. There is a great need to unblock organizations. Variety is exiting, creative and dynamic and needs to be celebrated.
The positive side of traditional medicine is that it covers the common symptoms and disease syndromes typical of the socio-economic status of a developing country, such as diarrhea, dysentery, gastro-intestinal disturbances, respiratory diseases and infections form arthritis to conjunctivitis, particularly in those rural areas where modern medicine and primary healthcare cannot meet the local needs.
The negative sides are: imprecise diagnosis, symptomatic and not etiological therapy, lack of precision in dosage forms, the possibility of intoxication and the practices of sorcery and quackery. The systems of traditional medicine are sometimes integrated with religion, traditions and beliefs on life, death and disease. Animism and fetichism therapy is integrated into cosmological and social fabric. Dosages and preparations of draughts depend on codified rules, association of figure metaphysical affinities. The efficacy if draughts is granted by magic words based on the cultural, social and religious background and by methods based on knowledge, altitudes and beliefs regarding physical, mental and social welfare, disease and disability.
In spite of these negative aspects, traditional medicine remains a rich cultural heritage whose potential is not always fully known and utilized because of ideological, political and technological constraints. The practitioners of traditional medicine and healthcare are traditional healers- herbalists, snake and scorpion bite experts, traditional bone – setters, traditional birth attendants (midwifes) and spiritualists (fetish priests and exorcists, who paralyze the witchcraft of sorcerers). Their role which has existed from time immemorial in Kenya tends to be inherited from generation to generation. The information is passed by word of mouth.
Traditional healers, the main source of health workers are outstanding persons, accepted and recognized members of the community in which they provide healthcare by using herbal substances and, to a lesser degree, animal and mineral substances. They live and work in rural areas and to them people turn in times of sickness and difficulty, especially where and when western primary healthcare is absent. Traditional doctors provide the cafeteria facilities for healthcare services and carry on a therapeutic as well as “occult” activity. The herbalists are originally dependant for their material and inspiration on the plants growing in their surroundings. For example every ethnic group there exists a host of medicinal plants capable of treating common symptoms and disease syndromes – some plants with a wide range of tolerance for a number of ecological limiting factors (such as humidity and temperature) are found in different areas of Kenya and are used for the same pharmacological function but not always with the same therapeutic affect. Moreover, many plants (and there parts thereof, named drugs) are used as panaceas i.e. various uses are made of the same plant and among different ethnics, the same plants are often described for very different purposes, even opposite ones. This being so because with the diverse cultural backgrounds of the ethnic groups in Kenya, traditional values vary greatly from group to group.
Due to rapid population growth rate, diminishing natural resource base and national income, cuts in foreign aid and the search for effective treatment for common diseases such as malaria and opportunistic infections associated with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis are driving renewed policy interest in traditional healthcare in Kenya. In addition, thoughtful Health Scientists and Planners are becoming disillusioned by the fact that health problems are increasing rapidly and need to be addressed on a much higher scale, including environmental pollution and nutrition. Health services through financial, infrastructural, logistic and educational restrictions often do not permit the optional delivery and adoption of known disease control measures.
The Kenya government has fully recognized traditional health practices and systems, and wishes to incorporate it into National Health Delivery Programmes (NHDP), including insurance, natural medicines, traditional foods, Traditional Health Practitioners and other health workers at all levels of education. Kenya subscribes to the principles contained in the “Alma Ata Declaration” of 1978 which stresses the need for any meaningful healthcare strategies in developing countries to introduce approaches for the provision of essential health services that correspond to basic needs, are universally acceptable and allow for the full participation of communities themselves.
This calls for integration with eight essential components, namely appropriate health education, provision of proper nutrition, basic sanitary facilities, maternal and childcare, control and prevention of local endemic diseases, appropriate treatment of injuries and provision of essential drugs. This Primary Healthcare approach is community action. It has been shown also that preventive health services are more cost – effective than curative ones.
Despite the fact that the role of traditional healthcare delivery is well recognized, some major challenges persist. Insufficient data on safety, efficacy and quality of pharmacological products (named drugs) and inadequate regimes for the protection of intellectual property rights. Also, Traditional Practices have not been based in thorough analysis of prevailing systems with the involvement of relevant stakeholders, particularly the Traditional Healthcare providers and practitioners themselves and the communities to improve skills and primary healthcare knowledge through Information, Education, Communication and Research.
At the global level, the World Health Organization (WHO) has also stated that traditional medicines and healthcare need to be evaluated for their safety and effectiveness before they can be accepted into National Health Policies (N H Ps).
The study of traditional healthcare and indigenous knowledge practices in Kenya is of special interest because of three factors:-
•Its rich heritage of curative materials which are renewable;
•Its continued use among the estimated 70-80% of the Kenyan population and,
•The wealth of available information – historical, archeological, anthropological, and empirical. That is disappearing fast and needs recording, packaging and dissemination before it is lost for posterity.
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