Bitter Pills:Medicines & The Third World Poor | Page 157

CHAPTER 7
TRADITIONAL
MEDICINE
IF HUMAN history were telescoped into a day, modern medicines would put in
an appearance only in the last few seconds. Over thousands of years different
societies have evolved ways of coping with illness and people have relied on plants
and other substances believed to have medicinal powers. These traditional health
care systems have survived even the rapid incursions of modernisation.
In the Third World today, about three-quarters of the population still rely on
traditional medicine - precisely the proportion of people denied access to modern
medical care. "'Indigenous medicine is the major source of healt hcare for many
of the rural poor. It is estimated that the village population of India spends ten times
more consulting local healers than the Government spends on health services.12' In
one area of the State of Uttar Pradesh served by a primary health care centre,
there were known to be 110 folk healers. They made up 86% of all health
practitioners in the area. (3)
Even in the towns, where health centres are more accessible, the poor often consult
a traditional healer first. A survey of mothers taking their children to a clinic in
the capital of Bangladesh revealed that over half went to a traditional healer before
attempting to get help from a doctor or health centre. (4) This seems to be partly
out of habit, and partly because of the prohibitive cost of modern medicine. An
OXFAM researcher in Upper Volta points out that the minimum daily wage in
the capital in 1980 was about 90p, but many workers were in fact earning much
less. "This group treads between traditional and western medicines. For some
ailments: headaches, skin conditions, certain fevers, or hepatitis, where the
indigenous medicines are recognised as effective, the traditional healer will be
visited first. A consultation and the medicine usually made from leaves or roots,
can cost between 9 pence and 36 pence; whereas seeing a nurse, even at a free
clinic, will often entail buying medicines at a much higher cost. Seeing a nurse
privately costs between 90p and £1.80, and visiting a doctor by appointment costs
between £1.80 and £3.60." {5)
There has been a recent surge of interest in traditional medicine. In Europe and
North America homeopathy, acupuncture and other alternative health systems
have increasingly won acceptance, to the point where acupuncture is now part
of the curriculum in some US medical schools. (6) Since committing themselves
to the target behind the WHO slogan "Health for all by the year 2000" (which
really means health services for all) Third World governments have also begun
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