Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa has urged prophets and traditional healers to stop discouraging patients from using medication in the name of spiritual healing.
In an interview with 263Chat, Parirenyatwa said his Ministry is completely is concerned about prophets who tell patients to stop taking medication claiming them to be healed by the spirit.
“We are completely upholding and dislike prophets who will tell our patients that stop taking medication, stop your blood pressure medication, diabetes medication because they have been healed by the spirit.
“We prefer that they should continue healing by the spirit but let the patients continue to take their medication,” said Parirenyatwa.
He added that people who prophecy to heal should be registered with the Traditional Practitioners Council.
“All traditional healers should register with the Traditional Healers Council, but now we are getting prophets who also prophesy to heal and we have a dilemma of whether we should include them under the council and we have found that our act allows us to put them into that so we prefer them to be registered and we will be able to find out what form of healing do they use,” said Parirenyatwa.
He urged people to report to the Ministry of Health and Child Care those practice healing without registration.
“It’s better to work it the other way to sensitize our population that we prefer that they should go to healers who are registered and its better if it comes from the population as a demand because it’s very difficult for us as a Ministry to monitor everybody so our population should take it upon themselves as communities to take charge that when they got a healer please don’t stop your medication and if they are not registered, they must report them, “he said.
