Submitted in partial completion for the degree of PHD in Community Psychology in the University of Zululand, 2006. / HIV/AIDS is the current century's challenge that stares humanity in the eye. The socio-political, economic, spiritual and philosophical dimensions of our society have to face up to this challenge. This brings one to the conclusion that HIV/AIDS is a national disaster and should be dealt with as such. In other words, interventions geared towards combating this epidemic should address all the spheres mentioned above. The main purpose of this study then was to investigate the role of indigenous healers in combating HIV and AIDS.
The rationale for looking at the role of indigenous healers was to ensure that their role is highlighted for a joint effort that is necessary for the advocacy, awareness, education, care and medical intervention which is necessary to combat the HIV/AIDS crisis. This challenge goes as far as involving non-medical professionals and stakeholders in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Focus group interviews and individual interviews were conducted with indigenous healers in the Gauteng and North West provinces. The results were analysed thematically. The results are presented in relation to the questions which were posed.
The results reflected that traditional healers have demonstrated that they can make a very important contribution to the treatment of HIV/AIDS. However, they feel that they are not receiving a fair opportunity to
demonstrate their knowledge and expertise in treating HIV and AIDS. They also lack support from the public, from government policy, and from the modem medical fraternity.
There have been efforts by the Minister of Health to incorporate traditional healing and traditional medicine as part of a holistic approach to the treatment and containment of HIV. This strengthens holistic health care ensuring the advocacy, awareness, education, care and medical intervention which is necessary to combat the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Traditional healers need support and recognition from the public, the government and the modem medical fraternity. It was also evident from the results that the indigenous healers were very willing to co-operate with biomedical practitioners as shown in the statement below.
Traditional healers reported that they did not routinely test their patients for HIV as they had no means of doing that. They were legally required to send their patients for testing through modem medical procedures. Most healers also said that they preferred their patients to be checked using modem medicine, and thereafter they would treat them accordingly. This is because they currently relied only on their ancestors to show them when the patient was positive. What is important to note is that these healers said that the disease was not presented to their bones as HIV/AIDS, but
that they were only shown the known symptoms of HIV and then were able to deduce that the person was HIV positive.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/249 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Dlamini, Busisiwe Precious |
| Contributors | Edwards, S. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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