Perspective Chapter: Integrating Traditional Healers into the National Health Care System – A Review and Reflection

Abstract

This paper reviews and reflects on the policy efforts to integrate traditional healers in Nepal. Most people in rural Nepal rely on traditional healers for their primary health care needs, not only because health facilities in rural areas are poorly functioning but also because these healers meet various health care needs. The kind of traditional medicine provided by traditional healers (such as herbalists, bone setters, faith healers, and traditional midwives) is much more accessible to them than the practitioners of biomedicine and scholarly traditional medicine (such as Ayurveda, Unani, and Homeopathy). However, traditional healers have not been recognized as legitimate practitioners. Policy initiatives are needed to facilitate recognition, accreditation, or licensing of traditional healers so that they can be integrated into the formal structure of the health care system. Nepal’s recent initiative of registration of traditional healers is an important policy effort in this direction.