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Rejoice Makoni

Herald Correspondent

The Government has called for an integrated health care system that would facilitate more efficient use of domestic resources to enhance self-sufficiency in health delivery.

The development was announced by the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care Dr John Mangwiro during his presentation on the convergence of alternative and mainstream medicine on a Zimbabwean perspective to Harare Institute of Technology students yesterday.

Dr Mangwiro said traditional medicine has always been a source of new drugs and it plays a key role in drug discovery.

“An integrated health care system results in reduction of the national import bill of pharmaceuticals creating more fiscal space, increased health workforce per capita, improved quality of care and improved health outcomes.

“Traditional complementary and integrative medicine has significant contribution in all six building blocks of health systems strengthening recommended by the World Health Organisaton.

“Strengthening the role of alternative medicine in main steam health care will increase universal health coverage which will result in the attainment of sustainable development goals.

“The development of modern technology has made possible to determine the pharmacology and mechanisms of action of many herbs. Traditional medicine has become comprehensible in terms of modern medicine and a clearer understanding of active compounds of traditional medicine has become possible” said the Deputy Minister.

Dr Mangwiro said partial or total convergence will increase choice in the care delivery system thereby providing accessible, effective, adequate and efficient minimum care for all.

“However, to achieve this we need to address barriers that impede us to fully integrate traditional medicine into our national health systems. These include safety issues related to the quality of traditional medicines, quality control in the processing and manufacturing of herbal medicines.

“Other factors include therapeutic communication barrier between service providers from the two systems and little knowledge about drug-herbal interactions among others.

“In closing the gap between the two systems we expect to see traditional medicine adapting to science in terms of diagnosis. We have called traditional health practitioners to use thermometers, BP machines to screen for vital signs among others.

“We expect to see the use of medical diagnostic procedures by alternative practitioners and we expect to see the use of alternative therapies by doctors and cross-referral of patients,” he added.

Dr Mangwiro also said that his Ministry has established a national office for traditional medicine, inclusion of traditional medicine in the national health strategy with emphasis on integration, inclusion of traditional medicine in the blue book and also under programme based budgeting.

“Complementary medicines are increasingly becoming popular as alternative remedies and quality of those products becomes of paramount hence legislation was passed.

“Medicine Control Authority of Zimbabwe is mandated to asses all complementary medicines that are destined for public use in Zimbabwe” said the Deputy Minister.

Dr Mangwiro said in order to ensure traditional practitioners are capacitated to render quality services the Ministry of Health and Child Care has collaborated with relevant stakeholders such as the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education in developing a curriculum for traditional medicine for National Foundation Certificate (NFC) and National Certificate (NC) and these have been ratified by HEXCO.

“The Ministry has established the first public traditional health clinic at Parirenyatwa initially offering Chinese medicine, China is advanced in terms of traditional medicine as such the idea is to learn and escalate the development of our indigenous traditional medicine in a structured manner. Government is leaving no one behind in its efforts to progressively improve the health of its population will continue to foster partnerships with friendly governments and partners to make sure there is health for all.

“The days of competition between the two systems could well be gone. These two systems cannot replace each other but instead they will find each other out” said Dr Mangwiro