By Patrick N. Tokpah
(Bong Contributor)
Bong County Electoral District 4 Representative aspirant, Solomon WeaWea Jr. has underscored the importance of building a traditional headquarter in Liberia.
He said when the traditional headquarter is built it will help to save more lives considering the shortage of doctors in the country.
“If the alternative traditional headquarter or medicine hospital can be built alongside the conventional medicine hospital like JFK, the Jackson F. Doe Hospital or the Phebe Hospital with the various traditional health practitioners, it will help solve a lot of medical problems in the country,” Mr. WeaWea explained.
WesWea believes this will prevent individuals from seeking treatment from the wrong herbalists and will offer a chance for patients that are unable to be treated by medical doctors.
“Let the medical doctors and the herbalists be side-by-side so that when doctors cannot determine a sickness if a sickness is conventional, they will give said case to alternative health providers that will be right nearby and it will help to save the lives of our people,” he added.
Mr. WeaWea added that constructing the necessary facilities at the medical center or headquarters in the country will ensure traditional herbalists that are spread throughout rural communities come together and be guided.
The 2023 Representative aspirant is confident that this approach will curtail previous incidences that have led individuals to be uncertified herbalists in the country.
There have been several calls for Liberia’s health sector to partner with traditional herbalists in finding alternative medications especially when many rural Liberians continue to remain accustomed to the practice of the tradition in Liberia.
The Bong County traditional son said this will obviously help avert some of the complications hindering public health care in the country, especially with concerns arising from how some of these herbalists conduct their treatments.
Liberia has a serious deficit in the number of medical doctors with World Health Organization (WHO) statistics showing that there are approximately 0.5 doctors and other health practitioners per 1000 persons living in the country; something considered far below the WHO standard which is put at 80% of the total health care coverage.
Mr. WeaWea made the statement on April 30, 2023, when he hosted a meeting with traditional leaders in Zota District.
For their part, the traditional leaders lauded the Bong County aspirant for the plan and said over the years the Government of Liberia has de-value the country’s traditional herbalists thereby causing more people to die from common illnesses that could be treated by herbalists.
