Traditional medicine and healthcare in Nigeria, which way forward ?

Fifty years after most countries attained
independence , Africans remain the
world ’s least healthy people. As a group,
they are at the bottom of every index of
social and economic indicators . Surveys
of the use of health services show that
fewer Africans are seeking care, partly
because fewer services are available at
affordable price , and partly because
they are dissatisfied with modern health
care services .
Biotech or, Biohealth , is a new modern
form of medicine that focuses almost
exclusively on using high -tech machines
to diagnose diseases , even before they
appear in the body . In Biotech, patients
are subjected to endless series of
expensive tests , just to detect illnesses
that are yet to manifest in the body , or
to know the nature of already diagnosed
ones . Biotech diverts attention from
the question ‘How can people prevent
illness ?’ to focus on ‘How can they pay
for treatment ?’
Whereas in the past , people go to the
hospital when they feel ill, today
everybody is advised to head for the
hospital for sicknesses that they may
suffer from in five or 10 years’ time.
Modern medicine has abandoned its role
as a healthcare provider to become a
HEALTH SCARE PROMOTER. Fear is a
very effective weapon in the armory of
modern medicine. The sick go to the
hospital because they are afraid of
death and the healthy go to the hospital
because they are afraid of falling sick.
One way or the other, we have all
become prisoners of fear.

Cont. Reading