THE government, through the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, has started registering traditional medicines to integrate alternative medical treatment into the conventional healthcare system.
Deputy Minister for Ministry of Health,
Social Development, Gender, Elderly and Children Dr Hamisi Kigwangalla
said in the National Assembly here that the move to officially register
researched and processed herbal medicines is aimed at preventing
potential health hazards brought by fake healers who peddle fake
medicines.
“Traditional healers are recognised by
law under the Traditional and Alternative Medicines Act and they are
registered with the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Council. Now,
we have started registering processed alternative medicines,” the deputy
minister informed the House.
With the country estimated to have over
80,000 traditional healers with varying specialties, Dr Kigwangalla
warned alternative healers, who are yet to secure their registrations,
to apply for traditional herbal registration before they can place
herbal medicines on the market.
The deputy minister was responding to a
supplementary question by Ms Faida Bakari (Special Seats-CCM), who
wanted to know what the government was doing to curb fake medicines
administered by traditional healers.
This followed a basic question by Ms
Zainabu Bakari (Special Seats-CCM), who expressed concerns over the
ever-increasing presence of fake and fraudulent doctors in the country,
saying it was detrimental to public health.
Dr Kigwangalla conceded that fake
doctors posed a big threat to the health and lives of Tanzanians, adding
that the government has taken deliberate measures to control the
problem.
“In most cases, this occurs in hospitals
with a big number of doctors, which makes it impossible for swift
identification of fake doctors,” revealed Dr Kigwangalla, adding that
hospitals are required to conduct regular check-ups to identify
unqualified and fake doctors who have infiltrated into the medical
profession.
He said measures taken by his ministry
include improving the functioning of the Tanzania Dentist Council, which
is entrusted to ensure doctors and dentists have required
qualifications as well as improved supervision of health servants in
hospitals.
“The implementation of this supervision
includes wearing of identity cards which show the names of each health
practitioner, this makes difficult for fake doctors to go unnoticed,”
said the deputy minister.
A number of fake doctors have been
caught up in some of the country’s most important referral medical
hospitals such as Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Sekou
Toure in Mwanza and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Kilimanjaro.
The deputy minister, however, said there
was no case reported on fake doctors causing harm to patients since
they were hiding in the hospitals seeking to con people rather than
attending them medically.
On fake medicine, he allayed the MPs’
fears, suggesting that it was not possible to distribute fake medicine
in public hospitals due to the stringent system of inspecting and
verifying medicines before they are registered and passed for use.
“Whenever there are rumours about fake
medicines somewhere, we send a team of experts to check,’’ he explained.
Dr Kigwangalla also revealed that the country was currently producing
around 1,000 doctors annually.
However, he was concerned on the limited
capacity to absorb all of them, pledging that the government has
concrete plans to increase the capacity.
He told the House that doctors were the
most highly-paid professionals in the country, claiming that many
graduating doctors preferred working in public hospitals rather than in
private ones due to the high pay in the former.
No comments :
Post a Comment