Help expose the quacks- herbalist

Dwama-Akyemfo, Nov. 29, GNA - A veteran herbalist at Dwama-Akyemfo in the Central Region, Opanyin Samuel Kojo Siripi, has appealed to honest and committed traditional medical practitioners in the regions, to help expose the quack ones in the system who give wrong messages to sick people in order to satisfy their inordinate financial ambitions.

He said such acts often sends bad signals about the operations of the traditional medical profession and undermine the image of the profession although traditional medicine plays a key role in the country's health delivery system.

Opanyin Siripi was speaking to a group of newsmen who contacted him last Friday for his views on the deadly disease, HIV/AIDS following his vast experience in traditional medical activities.

He had earlier on taken time to educate about 20 expectant women and other clients who patronised his clinic on various health aspects and asked them to always strive to report their health problems first to health centres and hospitals near them for advice.

Opanyin Siripi regretted that some herbalists often chose to give wrong information about relatives and other close relations of people who approach them to seek solutions to their spiritual and other problems with the sole aim of collecting huge sums of money from such desperate individuals.

He urged herbalists who deliberately indulge in such "wicked and ungodly acts" to stop and lead decent and upright lives, adding "you should not forget that whatever one does or sow, he or she would reap it in the course of his or her lifetime".

Opanyin Siripi advised Ghanaians, irrespective of their social status, ethnic, religious and political standing, to cultivate the spirit of courage and self-confidence so that they could speak the truth in the face of all difficulties, "to enable us to move the nation forward."