Witch Doctors

Muraho everyone!  This is Brannon, and I’m having another wonderful day in Rwanda, working at Kibagora Hospital.  So far this trip has been very exciting and I certainly hope it has been beneficial for the people of Rwanda.  After scrubbing in on an exploratory laparotomy on our first day, I have been working on the internal medicine service.  We’ve had several interesting cases, including neurosyphilis and tuberculous peritonitis, however, one of the things I have been most impressed and frustrated by is prevalence of problems caused by the so called “traditional healers”, or what is more appropriately called “witch doctors”. 

Among the medical problems we’ve encountered on internal medicine have been acute renal failure in one man named John, who presented with severe respiratory distress as his body tried to correct the metabolic acidosis his kidney failure was producing.  The first time we saw him he was sitting up in bed, looking quite uncomfortable, breathing in short quick pants like a dog in the heat of summer, barely able to speak, and his legs were both intensely swollen up to about mid-thigh.  After ruling out several of the most likely conditions, and after repeated questioning of him and his wife, we discovered that he had recently visited one of the illustrious traditional healers.  After discussing with two of the physicians who have been working here for awhile, I came to learn that many of the herbs and potions given by these traditional healers often cause such problems as acute kidney injury.

This was my first encounter with the adverse effects caused by these traditional healers, but it was not and will not be my last.  Another patient came in in excruciating pain, which was determined to be urinary retention caused by the wonderful medicines of the traditional healers.  Numerous other patients I have examined have had many small uniform scars on their abdomen, which I learned were the scars of “therapeutic cutting” by the traditional healers.  Another example was a patient of Dr. Peevy’s who was a three or four day old infant that had a large skin lesion on the center of the chest which was most likely inflicted by a traditional healer.

As frustrating as these problems are, I suppose we should be thankful that the patients are still trusting enough of us here at the hospital after the traditional healers have failed.  The reason being that many of the traditional healers actively subvert the efforts of medical professionals by warning them not to go to the hospital because we will hurt them and do more harm than good, ironically enough.

                Brannon