BRING IN THE OBEAH MAN : Dr Sonia Davidson of JAMAICA has argued that, with no conventional medical cure for Ebola, it is not improbable that someone affected with the disease could seek help from indigenous traditional healers.

Published: Monday | November 24, 2014 

Edmond Campbell,  Senior Staff Reporter

AS JAMAICA continues to make preparations and put structures in place to deal with the deadly Ebola if it lands on local soil, one general practitioner who is also a practitioner in alternative and complementary medicine, is urging health officials to incorporate indigenous traditional healers, commonly called obeah man/woman, into their Ebola sensitisation exercise.

Dr. Sonia Davidson

Dr Sonia Davidson has argued that, with no conventional medical cure for Ebola, it is not improbable that someone affected with the disease could seek help from indigenous traditional healers.

"I do think that, as part of the Ebola momentum, we should make it our business to find out every traditional healer anywhere ... . Find out who they are; have discussions with them, because people can slip into the country and go down to Clarendon, St Ann, St Thomas or Portland to see their obeah man and, don't think is just poor people who do that, you know," Davidson reasoned.

"This is the opportunity to do what the World Health Organization has been telling us to do all along, find out where your indigenous traditional healers are, document them, relate to them and upgrade their practices. Examine the condition in which they work and have them registered," she outlined... more