The new Nigerian Health Bill is out. This should be very good news for the millions of Nigerians who have waited long to see this day. Sadly, there are millions who have not seen this 'great' event, millions sent to an early "homecall" by Nigeria's ailing healthcare system. Today, June 3, 2008, I think of these Nigerians who are the testimony of the failures of our healthcare system. I think of them as I remember Patricia Eromon Iyioha nee Okokhere, my mother who withstood incessant malaria attacks, but fell to a doctor's deadly prescription.
Yes, the Health Bill is born. But should we roll out the drums? Should we rejoice over a Bill that, for all intents and purposes, may end up like Nigeria's stale Acts in the archives? I have struggled to be excited; I have pleaded with my falling spirit to rise up and cry Victory! A Saviour Act is on its way to be born! But one look at the Bill and my heart is falling...
I have been searching for some concrete provision regarding the strengthening of our traditional healthcare systems. I am searching - and frantically hoping - to find some paragraph emphasizing Nigeria's need to develop and standardize our traditional health and pharmaceutical industry - an industry utilized by 60% Nigerians, and our diverse "ethnopharmacological" knowledge [much as I detest using the term with its derogatory undertones] largely deplored as native knowledge.
There has to be some provision that douses my anxiety, that tells me Nigeria knows that the world is researching and deliberating on the need to strengthen traditional healthcare systems based on myriad studies evidencing the medical progress that can be achieved from these systems when carefully managed.
Historically, African traditional medical knowledge and approaches to disease have been underrated as unscientific (Aginam Obijiofor: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=319162). This imperialist conception of traditional healthcare systems has been internalized by modern African states. Today, the conception is manifested in health policy initiatives, at both the international and national levels, which exclude this sector of the medical industry. Yet, the annals of history and research would reveal that many great advances in pharmaceutical innovation have a direct link to our supposed unscientific and rural knowledge systems (Ikechi Mbeoji (Global Biopiracy, Patents, Plants and Indigenous Knowledge (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005).
Learned Nigerian scholars, like Professor Aginam, have drawn attention to the neglect of the contributions that our medical culture can make to global healthcare issues. Aginam has remarkably drawn the world's attention to the very important tension between WHO's health policies and initiatives and African ethnopharmacological knowledge systems. In the area of malaria control, Aginam rightly argues that multilateral health policies suffer a "regime deficit" because of the sad exclusion of our knowledge systems from international strategies directed at addressing global and non-global healthcare problems.
For Heavens sake, I am searching for a line that tells me Nigeria appreciates its own natural healthcare resource(s) and intends to nurture and protect it against biopiracy - the invasion of our traditional societies and the appropriation of our medical knowledge systems by western pharmaceutical companies.
Oh! Mother!
Today I found a line. One lonesome, isolated and nugatory phrase:
S.1 (2) paragraph (h): traditional and alternative health care providers.
OH! And what does it say?
The National Health System shall include traditional and alternative health care providers.
There's one more tired phrase under s. 6 (2) (l): The Technical Committee of the National Council on Health will require one representative from the registered health professional associations, including trado-medical practitioners.
Victory! It has all the hallmarks of exclusion. Some knowledges are better than others... It's a lonesome path to medical greatness...
Suggested Readings
Kenneth L. Leonard, "African traditional Healers and Outcome-contingent Contracts in Health care" Columbia University Working Paper (http://search.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=229475)
Ikechi Mgbeoji, “Patents and Traditional Knowledge of Uses of Plants: Is a Communal Patent Regime Part of the Solution to the Scourge of Biopiracy?” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 9 (2001): 163.
Ikechi Mgbeoji, “Beyond Patents: The Cultural Life of Native Healing and the Limitations of the Patent Sytem as a Protective Mechanism for Indigenous Knowledge on the Medicinal Uses of Plants”; available online at: http://cjlt.dal.ca/vol5_no1/pdfarticles/mgbeoji.pdf
Ikechi Mgbeoji, Global Biopiracy: Patents, Plants and Indigenous Knowledge (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005).
Obijiofor Aginam, "From the Core to the Peripheries: Multilateral Governance of Malaria in a Multi-Cultural World" (Chicago Journal of International Law, Vol. 3, No 1, Spring 2002).
C. Oguamanam, “From Rivalry to Rapprochement: Biomedicine, Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) at Ethical Crossroads” (2006) 18:3 Health Ethics Committee (HEC) Forum 245-263.
Akin Makinde, African Philosophy, Culture and Traditional Medicine (Ohio University Press, 1998).
Ireh Iyioha, "Informed Choice in Alternative Medicine: Expanding the Doctrine Beyond Conventional Alternative Therapies" ICFAI Journal of Healthcare Law, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2007. Available online at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=959769
Health Monitor: Traditional Medicine: Our Culture, Our Future
Available at: http://www.afro.who.int/press/periodicals/healthmonitor/jan-jun2003.pdf
ABOUT THE PICTURE
Source: http://www.prometra.org/Library.WHO-AFRO.html
The map of Africa denotes African ownership of African Traditional Medicine.
The medicinal plant, rose-colored pure flower represents the main raw materials used in traditional medicine.
The green background of the map of Africa denotes the rich African biodiversity.
The blue color surrounding most of the African continent represents the bodies of water, which surround most of Africa, and are additional sources of some traditional medicines.
The golden ring which houses all the other elements is a reflection of the golden competitive advantages that African Traditional Medicine offers with potential impact on the health, economy and development of African communities.
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