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Traditional Healer News

South Africa’s Supreme Court Allows Traditional Healers Sick Notes

​After years of waiting the Interim Traditional Practitioners Council of South Africa has been announced. This will enable all registered traditional practitioners to give  proof of consultation to their patients which now has to be accepted by the employer.

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The annoucement has been made on the 12th of February 2013 by the Deputy Minister of Health (Gwen Ramokgopa).  For more information on the creditbility of all Tradtional Practitioners, read the full articles here:

Interim Traditional Health Council Inaugurated

The primary goal of the interim traditional health practitioners council (ITHPC) which was inaugurated this week in terms of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act (2007) is to assist the health department to integrate traditional health medicine into the national health system.

Deputy Minister's speech at the inauguration of the interim Traditional Health Practitioners

As an integral part of Indigenous knowledge systems, Traditional Medicine has been recognised and endorsed by the World Health Organisation since the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration of PHC as well as recently the African Union in its Plan of Action on Traditional Medicine

Traditional healers and their medicine to be formalised

The 20-member council, which will be in office for three years, is made up of members from all nine provinces and also has representatives of stakeholder bodies, including the Health Professions Council and the SA Pharmaceutical Council.
The Times reports that the Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that when an employee gives in a sick note from a traditional healer it should be taken as seriously as a certificate from a qualified medical doctor.  Following a unanimous judgment, Judge Azhar Cachalia ordered the reinstatement of Johanna Mmoledi, a section chef sacked by the Kievits Kroon Country Estate, near Pretoria, in 2007.  Mmoledi was fired after attending a course on traditional healing and not returning to work.  Mmoledi claimed her absence from work was caused by "circumstances" beyond her control as she had received a "calling from her ancestors" that she be trained as a traditional healer.  She left a traditional healer's letter on the desk of the estate's human resources manager.  
 
Noting that 80% of South Africans met their "physical, spiritual and emotional wellbeing" needs through the use of traditional medicine, the court held that a traditional healer's sick note should be considered the equivalent of a doctor's.
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