Connect Uganda - Ugandans resorting to use of herbal medicines

Ugandans resorting to use of herbal medicines

Written by Steven Lubwama

Whenever you listen to the local radio stations in Uganda, you can note that a large percentage of commercials are from the herbal doctors calling on clients to go and get treatment from these herbal doctors. It might be ethically wrong for a doctor to advertise his services but now its more than a year that this has been going on. Many people in Uganda now are visiting these doctors for their health services. This is actually a turning point in the sphere of medicine in the country. Unlike in the 1990s where by these doctors were associated with witch crafty, these days people have seen a difference between witch crafty and herbs.

Its amazing that even HIV/AIDS symptoms can be treated by the herbal medicine popularly known as "budomola" (jerry cans) because patients / clients always take their dosage in small jerry cans given to them by these doctors. Brother Anatoli Wasswa, one of the popular herbalist and a priest says that since nature is blessed from the time of creation, there is nothing wrong with the use of herbs for the better health as long as no satanic practices are involved. He himself uses herbs for his patients in a dispensary he has in Rakai which also has a branch in Kampala.

Ugandans resorting to use of herbal medicine.

The use medicine in healing is central in cultures worldwide. Until the 19th century most western medicines were given in form of crude preparations of plant leaves, roots or flowers. Today approximately 75% of western drugs come from plants. Commercial refined drugs have their advantages like popping pills is more convenient than chewing herbs. Refined compounds can also be measured and prescribed more precisely. But refined are not always better than the preparations of the crude plants from where they come. The process of isolating and concentrating the active ingredient can make the drug more toxic than the plant.

Another cost of scientific medicine has a gradual change in age-old relationship between the healer and the patient. Most patients were treated in their homes, and doctors routinely note in their records such details as life expectancy, employment, living standards and family circumstances. In this they could study all the signs and analyse their patients. As practitioners of western medicine have become more confident of their skills, they have shifted their emphasis from patients to disease.

A wide spread belief plaguing people's minds is that healing is something doctors do for us, not something we do for ourselves, sometimes with the doctors help.Herbal medicines often are more subtle in their action, may work more slowly and can be used longer with fewer side effects.

Lately there has been revival of interest in herbal medicine, many people in our culture long for a mere natural, gentle and cantered approach to healing. Science may look back to nature for help in developing a new generation of medicines in tune with the body's own healing system. The French writer Voltaire stated " physicians pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into the humans of which they know nothing".

Doctor Ssali has practised herbal medicine for some good years. The doctor set out a mission to learn as much as he could on herbal medicine. He started making his own drugs from herbs in liquid form as syrups but realised would need preservatives. He thus started to make drugs in powder and tablet form, for instance the aloe vera tabs. Dr. Ssali is established at Dama medical herbs at his clinic on Mitchell Cots where there are queues of patients waiting to see him with all sorts of ailments every day.

Dr. Ssali trained as a medical doctor at at Nirobi university then proceeded to Germany where he specialised in dermatology. "Many people think that when they start having difficulty to pass urine, the solution is operation as many have told" states the doctor. One Buyondo expressed fear of facing the surgical knife or standing the pain of the catheters inserted in the urethra. Ssali instead recommended colon(large intestine) irrigation with herbal medicine then ordered him to sleep with a clove of garlic inserted into the anus every day. After 40 days, the problem was gone.

One Buwule had a complicated problem. A huge swelling that appeared like a second head developed from a seemingly harmless bulge on his right shoulder. The doctors he had consulted before said it could not be tampered with as it could turn cancerous. But Dr. Ssali in May this year, injected him with herbal medicines to stop blood from flowing to the swelling. That same week, the swelling was cut in an hour operation.Now there is only a scar after a wound that healed successfully. "Buwule had only a collection of fats that I had to get rid of." said Dr. Ssali. Dr Ssali's patients and those who had a chance to discuss with him have become ambassadors of his theories and procedures.

Dr. Ssali says that he is mostly interested in empowering as many people as he can to take care of their health. He says that there are even some patients he can easily instruct on their phones after knowing their symptoms without seeing them. For instance those with enlarged prostrate glands, he says this is only caused by accumulation of toxins that had been not absorbed by the liver. the cure is in riding the gland of toxins and providing minerals and irons to repair it. This what garlic clove does. He emphasizes that we fall sick because we eat wrongly. if we ate right, there would be no need for doctors.