Herbalist wants Health Insurance law reviewed to cover herbal medicines

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Aponche Clinic, Kwesi Afriyie-Badu is advocating an amendment of the National Health Insurance (NHI) law to allow people to access health care from accredited herbal and traditional healers.

According to him, such a development will help reduce the cost of health care in the country and also give a boost to the development of herbal and traditional medicine.

Mr Afriyie-Badu was speaking at the closing ceremony of a two-week training programme organized by the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine (CSRPM) for staff of Aponche Clinic at Mampong-Akuapem.

The training participants were taken through various topics on the preparation of herbal medicine, including plants sampling and identification, quality assurance and standard operating procedure in herbal preparations, disease classification, preservation of herbs and the establishment of herbal farms to ensure continuous supply of herbs and their preservations.

Mr Afriyie-Badu said Aponche Clinic aspires to offer the best health care for its clients and, so the clinic is collaborating with the Tema General Hospital and the Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate, to enhance their performance.

He called for a national strategic plan to make Ghana a major player in the world herbal medicines market.

The Executive Director of the CSRPM, Professor Dominic Edoh, assured that the Centre is ever ready to collaborate and share information on its work with herbal centers and individual herbalists as well as traditional medicine practitioners, who are interested in the work of the Centre and to improve upon their knowledge.

He commended the leadership of Aponche Clinic for the efforts to get their staff acquire more knowledge in their field.

Professor Edoh stressed that the fact that one could get access to herbal medicines at the regional hospitals in the country these days is an indication that the nation is working towards the development of herbal medication as part of the formal health care system of Ghana.