Prophet, sangomas warned

MINISTER of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, yesterday warned traditional healers and prophets for stopping patients from taking medical drugs.

Min Parirenyatwa said this on the sidelines of the official opening of the IAEA regional (AFRA) training course on quality management in radio therapy at Crowne Plaza.

He urged prophets and traditional healers to register under his ministry so as to protect patients from consulting unregistered healers.

"The ministry is mandated to register all people who prophesy to heal outside the allopathic medicine, so it means that all traditional and faith healers should register with traditional healers' council," said Min Parirenyatwa.

"We are now getting prophets who also prophesy to heal and we have a dilemma of whether we should include them under our traditional practitioners' council.

"We have found out that our Act allows us to put them into that Act so we would prefer that they register with us and we will be able to say what form of healing are they making for the population of Zimbabwe.

"We completely abhor prophets who will tell our patients to stop taking medication claiming that they have been healed by the spirit.

"We prefer that you continue to heal by the spirit but let them continue taking their tablets so that the two can work together.

"Please do not stop patients from taking medication and if caught the law will take its course and we urge patients to consult registered healers," said Min Parirenyatwa.

He noted that some patients are facing resistance in some drugs because of stopping to take medication following prayers from faith healers and resume after facing health deterioration.

The numbers of healers are growing by day and as communities continue taking medication if you are on medication, we have disasters out of people being asked to stop taking medication," he said.