Medical herbalists upgrade skills on advocacy

The Ghana Association of Medical Herbalists (GAMH), has called for policy reforms and more commitment by stakeholders to mainstream herbal medicine practice into the country’s health delivery system.

They said it had become necessary to allow the stakeholders to actively and broadly participate in health promotion and care.

Mr Bernard Kofi Turkson, President of the Association, addressing a training workshop for the members in Kumasi, said the current situation where they had no clear-cut roles and responsibilities in the health delivery system, was unhelpful to the nation’s efforts at achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on health.

The four-day workshop aims at discussing ways of tackling impediments to effective herbal medicine practice.

“Advocacy action for health delivery in Ghana – Mainstreaming the role of medical herbalists” was the theme.

Topics discussed included “advocacy”, “identification of problems”, “rationale for public-private partnership”, “regulations and herbal medicine.”

Mr Turkson said the efficacy of herbal medicine was not in doubt and it was important more attention was focused on its development.

He said there was the need to improve facilities at health centres so that patients could access alternative health care.

Mr Turkson said the huge investment made in the training of medical herbalists could go waste if they were not given due recognition to make their knowledge more relevant to the health needs of the people.

Mr Nyaaba Aweeba Azongo, a Business Consultant, advised the participants to take the workshop seriously so as to build the needed competencies to enhance their performance.

Source: GNA