The role of Shona traditional institutions in the Zimbabwean health sector

Abstract

Health is a fundamental commodity that everyone craves for. Over the years, health in Zimbabwe has been a priority of the Shona traditional institutions. The coming of the missionary redefined health in the western language and Eurocentric institutions replaced the indigenous health institutions. The colonizers drafted a constitution that criminalized the role of Shona traditional institutions. On a positive note, the constitution upheld health as a priority. It is the assumption of this research that these challenges have pre-cursed the crisis in the health sector. This research takes into cognisance that some western church-related, civic, and non-governmental organisations attempted some interventions within the health delivery system. The emergence of African initiated churches (AIC) that have an African religious flavour was also explored to establish the extent of their contribution to the health sector. Phenomena such as spiritual healing, exorcism as well as prophetic healing and deliverance were also explored to try and discover their effectiveness within the 21st century health sector of Zimbabwe. Although this research acknowledges the effort by other institutions, it is an attempt to advocate for mainstreaming of the STIs in dealing with health issues in Zimbabwe. The central argument is that the STIs may bridge gaps left out by western health care systems. They thus have the potential to either compliment modern western healthcare provision or even provide the solution to a significant chunk of health challenges of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Some of these STIs include chieftainship, traditional healing, and veneration of ancestors, spiritual remedies, rituals, and taboos. Modern health practitioners, Shona traditional healers and traditional leaders were interviewed in order to retrieve data from the resource people on the ground. To this end, the study adopted , the comparative and phenomenological methodologies and both secondary and primary methods for the collection of data through relevant books, journals, periodicals, magazines, the internet, current affairs programmers as well as both purposive and random interviews of relevant resource people. The data collected allowed the researcher to analyse the relevance and central role of the STIs in the health sector of Zimbabwe in the 21st century. The research found that, in as much as the STIs have been long suppressed by modern science since the dawn of colonialism, they have stubbornly remained relevant, reliable, and accessible to the majority of the Zimbabwean populace. This prompted the researcher to proffer recommendations to policy makers and traditional healers to develop health policies that are inclusive, pragmatic, and progressive in nature.