Dr. Michael Tetteh, the Head of the Herbal Unit of the Tema General Hospital, has said that Ghana is a pacesetter in professional herbal medicine within primary health care.

He said though a few African countries made use of herbal medication, it was Ghana that first commenced professional use of herbal medicine for healing diseases.

Dr. Tetteh, who is also an Herbal Physician disclosed this during the weekly ‘Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy.

The Ghana News Agency’s Tema Regional Office developed the public health advocacy platform ‘Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility’ to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting.

He stated that Nigeria, which made use of traditional medicine, is ‘no
w starting the professional use of traditional medicine.’

Ghana, he added, had started piloting the integration of herbal medicine practice into mainstream health care.

Dr. Tetteh said the piloting started with 19 units across the country, which have now grown to 55 units in public secondary health institutions, including Tema General Hospital.

He said the integration was being done in line with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023, which came into force to ensure that Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3-health for all-was achieved.

He said according to the WHO, about 80 percent of the world’s population used traditional medicine one way or the other, and several people turn to traditional medicine first before going to hospitals.

The Herbal Physician added that the strategy aimed at ensuring integration of traditional medicine into mainstream health care, the efficacy of the medicines, their quality use, and access to them, among others.

To ensure smooth integr
ation, in 1991, he said a traditional medicine directorate was introduced for policy formulation, adding that in 2000, the Traditional Medicine Practice Council

was created to handle registration and regulation of the practice and Through the policy, the training of professional herbal doctors was to be the forerunners of integration.

The herbal physician said the units were being run by well-qualified medics with the requisite training to consult on illnesses, adding that the only difference in care had to do with them using the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA)-certified herbal medications for the treatment.

He gave the assurance that, apart from emergency and surgical care, the herbal units have medications for all kinds of diseases, such as internal medical issues, gynaecological, neurological, infections, hypertension, and diabetes, among others.

He advised herbal medicine lovers not to experiment with unregulated medications when sick but visit their facilities to get proper care for all their illnesse
s.
Source: Ghana News Agency