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Ghana HEALTH AND WELFARE
In precolonial Ghana, as in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa,
traditional priests were important in providing treatment for the
sick. The role of village priests in the medical sphere reflected
the belief that unexplained illness, misfortune, and premature
death were caused by supernatural agents. In the treatment of
illness, therefore, the usual process was for the priest to use
divination to determine the source of the malady and to suggest
sacrifices to appease the causal agents before herbal medicine was
prescribed for the patient. Since the introduction of Islam in
Ghana in the fourteenth century, Muslim clerics have also been
known to provide spiritual treatment and protection in the form of
charms and amulets derived from the Quranic beliefs.
The role of the village priests, who provided medical advice
and sometimes treatment for the sick, has often been stressed over
that of the herbalists, who served their communities solely as
dispensers of medicinal herbs. Recent scholarship, however, has
shown that villagers in the premodern era understood illness and
misfortune to originate from both natural and supernatural sources.
Even after a spiritually caused ailment was identified and the
proper rituals performed, the final cure was usually via the
application of medicinal herbs--a situation that made knowledge of
the medicinal value of plants and herbs important. Herbal medicine
was used in the treatment of diarrhea and stomach pains, for
dressing wounds, as an antidote for poisons, and to stabilize
pregnancies. Traditional healers continue to be relied upon,
especially in the rural areas where modern health services are
limited.
The medical value of traditional remedies varies. While the
medicinal properties of herbs cannot be denied, in some cases herbs
may be harmful and may result in severe infections or even death.
It was for this reason that an association of traditional healers
was formed in the 1960s with its headquarters at Nsawam in Greater
Accra Region. The Traditional Healers' Association has tried to
preserve the integrity of traditional medicinal practice. Its
members have also attempted to assure the government, through the
Ministry of Health, that the dispensation of herbal medicine has a
role to play in modern medical practice in Ghana.
Western medicine was first introduced into the Gold Coast by
Christian missionaries and missionary societies in the nineteenth
century. Missionaries were almost the sole providers of modern
medicine until after World War I. Important missionary medical
facilities in Ghana today include Catholic-affiliated hospitals in
Sunyani and Tamale, the Muslim Ahmadiyah facilities at EfiduasiAsokori , and a Presbyterian hospital at Agogo in the Eastern
Region.
Attempts by the central government to expand Western medical
care in the country were given serious consideration during the
tenure of Frederick Gordon Guggisberg (1919-27) as governor of the
Gold Coast. As part of his ten-year development program, Guggisberg
proposed town improvements, improved water supply, and the
construction of hospitals. It was during his era that Korle Bu, the
first teaching hospital in the Gold Coast, was completed in 1925.
Since the end of World War II, the World Health Organization
(WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have provided
financial and technical assistance for the elimination of diseases
and the improvement of health standards. A shortage of medical
specialists exists, however, and local facilities for training
medical personnel need to be expanded and updated. As a
consequence, many Ghanaians in the immediate post-World War II
period continued to rely on traditional doctors and herbalists.
Despite efforts to improve medical conditions in the decades
following World War II, the first postindependence census of 1960
did not provide data on the medical situation in Ghana. There was
still no regular system for gathering medical statistics by the
mid-1960s and no suggestion that one would be developed by 1970.
During that period, available figures were gathered from scattered
samplings and were collected on a haphazard basis or were the
summation of hospital records and United Nations projections. Thus,
only partial information about the total health situation was
available. Records from the 1984 census and newspaper reports on
seminars conducted on health-related issues, especially since the
mid-1980s, now make it easier to evaluate national health.
Data as of November 1994
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