By Tilly Barrie
The Registrar of the Medical and Dental Council of Sierra Leone says his council can prosecute traditional healers who advertise their services in the media if they continue “flouting the warnings against the practice”. Dr. Samuel Thorpe says they have been issuing press statements to all the radio stations but that some of the journalists continue accepting advertising from traditional healers in the full knowledge of it being wrong. He told Politico that he had spoken directly to three radio stations about the illegality of such advertising but to no avail. He said the "basic explanation is that the traditional healers pay up front for like three or six months and some of these radio stations say they are independent and need the money to run their station” adding that “it’s not the money but the practice is illegal’. The Chair of the Committee on Advertising at the Independent Media Commission says "adverts should be truthful, honest, decent and culturally acceptable". Speaking to Politico at the IMC headquarters in Freetown, Joshua Nicol noted that it was impossible to discover drugs that healed all illnesses suffered by human beings as some of these traditional healers claim to have medication ranging from impotency, barrenness and relationships. "How would you be able to prove some unsubstantiated claims like divine powers from above" Mr. Nicol asked, adding that his commission had acquired a Sterlitz Monitoring System with the capacity to monitor 15 radio stations at any one time throughout the day and night. The National President of the Traditional Healers in Sierra Leone, Alhaji Dr. Sulaiman Kabba said he'd been receiving complaints that some of their members were duping people on the pretext of healing them while continuously running advertisements on radio stations in the country. “Good doctors don’t need to go to radio stations to talk about the diseases they can cure” Dr Kabba said, adding rather philosophically that “it is their former patients who should go around talking about them”. He said that it was impossible for one doctor to be able to cure six or more diseases because they must specialize. He said his union was registered with the Medical and Dental Association and agreed that "If any member flouts the warning from the MDC they should be arrested and prosecuted". None of the traditional healers at the centre of the controversy were available to speak to Politico despite repeated efforts made to reach them. (C) Politico 05/07/13
