African/Caribbean Traditional Practitioners

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, while traditional medicine is used by an overwhelming majority of the people of the world today, traditional medicine practitioners are increasingly recognizing the efficacy of Western health care modalities and many are incorporating these techniques into their practices. The author points out that traditional medicine is a particularly favored approach for some mental health issues in Africa and the Caribbean where sufferers steadfastly believe that such mental health maladies can only be resolved with such techniques. The paper relates that the integration of costly Western medicine into traditional medicine practices ultimately may make these techniques too expensive for many consumers, leaving these patients to be treated by traditional medicine practitioners armed with a pantheon of evil spirits and herbal remedies for virtually any ailment including HIV/AIDS . Table.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Review and Discussion
Background and Overview
Traditional Medicine in the African/Caribbean Context
Integration of Traditional Medicine Methods in Mental Health Care Settings
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"There are dramatically different levels of funding provided by the different countries for health care purposes in these regions of the world; for example, in Kenya, individual private-sector payments represent 41 percent of total outlays for health and such expenditures account for 75-80 percent of total health care costs in Sudan. This author reports that private-sector payments in many African nations are used for traditional medicine treatments even if alternative methods are available. In Guinea, for example, private expenditures on health have already exceeded official government expenditures on health care. Likewise, private health care spending in Benin is already reportedly higher than the ministry of health recurrent budget, and in Ethiopia, private expenditures represent 66 percent of the total financing for modern health care."

More papers on African/Caribbean Traditional Practitioners:

• Cause and Effect Essay # 91356 : "African and Caribbean Diaspora"
• Comparison Essay # 37019 : "The Tale-Telling Tradition of Women in Caribbean Literature"
• Term Paper # 133787 : "Cultural Traditions in the Caribbean"

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