Stop using the media as curative camps, faith healers cautioned

Baifikrom, (C/R), Oct. 31, GNA - Faith healers have condemned people, including pastors, who have turned radio and television stations into healing camps and were confusing innocent clients with their so called curative powers.

Mr Maxwell Amedewonu, the Administrator of Ghana Association of Faith Healers (GAFH), who expressed the worry, appealed to the media to stop making advertisements for unlicensed members of the Association. He made the call at a ceremony organised by the Traditional Medicine Practitioners' Council (TMPC), to present licences to 30 members of GAFH and Traditional Birth Attendants, in recognition of their roles in health delivery in the country, at Baifikrom in the Mfantsiman Municipality. Mr Amedewon cautioned members to abide by the code of ethics set by the Ministry for the Association and warned that GAFH would withdraw the licenses of offending members.

Bishop Esther Bediako, member of the Association, and leader of the Samaria Healing Church at Baifikrom, commended government for recognizing the role of the Association in the promotion of health in Ghana. She said the Association was encouraged to work harder by the issuance of licenses to it members and pledged that quack healers would be eliminated.

Bishop Bediako said pastors without GAFH licenses should not be allowed to operate as healers.

Reverend J.B. Danquah, President of GAFH, appealed to the members to be diligent, committed and truthful in the discharge of their work and said the over commercialization and undue demands by practitioners from clients was wrong.

Mr Kwaku Owusu, General Secretary of the Association, said that GAFH would ensure that leaders of healing camps undergo training at recognized centres before recommending them for license.

He said healing camps would be inspected to ensure that they had toilets, bathrooms and other amenities before the issuance of licenses to their leaders.

The TMPC was established under the Ministry of Health by ACT 575 of 2000 as a regulatory body to monitor the activities of people who perform healing that is outside the orthodox medical practice.