The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kwayisi Christian Herbal Clinic Dr. Emmanuel Apem Darko, located at Ayisaa in the Suhum municipality of the Eastern Region has called for effective collaboration between alternative medicine and orthodox medicine practitioners.
According to him, people across the world are gradually shifting from using orthodox medications as means of treatment of their ailments to alternative treatment because of the comparative advantage the latter has over the former.
He disclosed that the introduction of alternative health treatment cannot and not in challenge with the orthodox health treatment rather as an alternative when all efforts to use orthodox method failed.
To this, practitioners in the orthodox sector should rather recognize alternative health practitioners as effective and efficient stakeholders towards the provision of quality health care delivery.
He expressed his disappointment over the fact that, some health practitioners in the orthodox bandwagon seek for treatment in the alternative health care facilities yet they (orthodox practitioners) treat patients’ referred to their facilities with disrespect and contempt.
“We are appealing to our brothers in the orthodox health practice to see us as key stakeholders to health care and stop treating our patients with contempt”, he appealed.
He further cried foul over the destruction of the forest leading to destruction of medicinal plants, adding that, “unregulated exploitation of the country’s bio-resources, environmental degradation, and deforestation, uncontrolled burning and poor agriculture practices have been a major threat to the survival of medicinal plant species”.
The over five (5) billion herbal facility has two consulting rooms, two medical stores, records, massage theatre, two production rooms, dispensary, large car park and operates from Monday to Friday.
“Alternative treatment and use of traditional medicine in providing primary health care should appreciated considering its economic as well as cultural preferences to the Ghanaian”, he declared.
The Kwayisi Christian Herbal Clinic Dr. of the view that, this resistance stems from the primary philosophical distinctions between conventional medicine, which is based on the results of experiments and views illness as a result of pathological agents, and traditional medicine, which accepts that disease can have supernatural and imbalance between body, mind and soul.
He contended that, traditional medicine remains the main source of health care for most rural populations not only in Ghana but Africa, hence the need for government and other stakeholders in the sector to create enabling environment for businesses to grow.
According to him, the use of medicinal plants for the treatment of diseases dates back 1960s when the father now deceased Stephen Mintah Yenkyere through a combination of instinct, observation, taste, experience treated illness by using plants.
Dr. Ampem Darko continued that, the late father started from Asuoyaa, a farming community in Akropong of the Akuapem North municipality before moving to its present location with little or no interest in establishing a clinic.
This is because he saw the practice of using medicinal plants to heal people as more devilish than means of alternative health care delivering until was advised by a Presbyterian pastor to establish a facility since even in the days of Jesus Christ herbs were used for treatment of ailments, hence not idolism.
According to Dr. Darko who has many certificates from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Logos graduate school and other institutions on plant medicine he took over from the late father after graduating from the Takoradi polytechnic in 2000 as a quantity surveyor.
He reiterated that, despite working with the late Yenkyere for many years and well vested in plants identification and preparations, he started as a dispenser with the father from a wooden structure.
The quantity surveyor turned doctor stressed that, he was highly motivated to establish the new multi- purpose facility to provide quality alternative health treatment in honour of the father who died in 2013.
The facility has so far employed about 100 people directly and indirectly towards the contributions of the socio-economic development of the country.
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