Pretoria - A clash is looming between a group of sangomas in Tshwane and Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi over the “restrictive nature” of the proposed regulations on traditional health practice.
Sangomas in Mamelodi have vowed to take on Motsoaledi after he published the proposed regulations in the Government Gazette on November 3, proposing that the traditional health practice be regulated.
They accused him of wanting to infuse the western tradition into their African traditional practice and threatened to march to the Union Buildings if their demands fell on deaf ears.
In terms of the proposed regulations, a person wishing to be a sangoma should apply for registration and must be at least 18 years and above.
The application must be forwarded to the Interim Traditional Healers’ Council and be accompanied by a certain fee.
The 20-member council is made up of members from all nine provinces and also has representatives of stakeholder bodies among them the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the South African Pharmacy Council.
They will have to undergo training at an accredited institution or with a traditional tutor.
Sangomas said the proposals were disrespectful towards them because they were based on the assumption that the traditional health practice was like a career.
Traditional healer Nomsa Sibeko said: “You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a sangoma. To be a sangoma is a calling. There is no time frame for when your amadlozi (ancestors) will come to you.”
She denounced the intention to prescribe the age from which sangomas can practise their trade.
“The situation is spiritually controlled,” she said.
The department wants the would-be sangomas to possess an adult basic education and training level one qualification as one of the pre-requisites for practising.
Sibeko said the department must organise the training workshop at which the lessons would be offered.
She dismissed the ministry's proposal that initiates keep a log book to record every step of their training.
Another healer Gogo Mabhoko, 56, said the proposals were impractical and restrictive, citing that one of her initiates started undergoing the training when he was 12.
Another sangoma, Rathabeng Mogoboya, said the department should be targeting healers who went about advertising themselves as able to cure every disease.
Under the proposed regulations, the department intends to enforce 12 months training for all sangomas. But, sangomas said the length of their training couldn't be determined by the government because “it was spiritually controlled. We try to keep the initiates for three months but that is also up to the ancestor of the initiate,” said Sibeko.
A further proposal was that sangomas record the information discussed between themselves and their patients in a log book, but Sibeko said: “Anything that happens between my patient and a traditional health practitioner is confidential.”
There was also an outcry that the gazette was written only in English and therefore excluded most sangomas from providing feedback.
“We want the gazette to be published in all the official languages, including the audio records,” she said.
Pretoria News
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