Traditional medicine in Bulamogi county, Uganda: its practitioners, users and viability.

Traditional medicine (TM) in Bulamogi (Uganda) is holistic, providing treatments for physical illnesses as well as psycho-spiritual ones. People use it to prevent and eliminate the effects of witchcraft, to appease spirits and to cure chronic illnesses. The traditional medicine practitioners (TMPs) are numerous and have extensive experience of traditional healing. They serve as important depositories of traditional knowledge of healing. The health seeking behaviour of the Balamogi is biased towards orthodox medicine (OM), because the people believe it to be more effective than TM. Local people prefer the exact diagnosing methods of orthodox medicine practitioners. The functional values of OM and TM are different in that they serve different health needs in the society. We suggest that they are compatible and complementary as a reliance on both systems is observed. The TMPs, upon additional training, are seen by authorities as a ready source of manpower to provide primary health care services. Some effort has been taken to recognise and integrate TM into the mainstream health care delivery system of Uganda.