Ametra 2001 Tambopata
Investigating news ways to promote traditional medicine among indigenous people in the Amazon:
In the last 20 years or so, in the western amazon region, several projects have intended to develop a new approach to primary health care. This has been recognized as a necessity after considering that the conventional approach of the western medical system has failed to solve the basic health problems among indigenous populations. As a result of this a more integral perspective has been developing and efforts have been made to work more from within the socio-cultural context of the local people.
In Ecuador, the "Departamento de Medicina Tradicional" (DMT) of the Shuar Federation is developing a program to evaluate ways to potentialaise the adaptive and creative capacities of their traditional health system. Currently, the DMT is engaged in the processing of locally available medicinal plants into natural medicines. It is hoped that these natural medicines will soon be incorporated into Shuar community pharmacies, and that this will begin to reduce the dependence and excessive consumption of relatively expensive, synthetic western drugs, with the adverse effects such reliance implies.
This approach seeks to build up upon the traditional indigenous health and medical systems and also promote the appropriate and complementary use of western medicine. In this way the DMT aims to contribute to the establishment of a more comprehensive, practical and culturally appropriate health care program for the Shuar people, which in turn can translate into an improvement of quality of life through the incorporation of an intercultural perspective.
After a year of work, having set up its first natural pharmacy, at the Sucúa health center (headquarter of the Shuar Federation), the DMT is looking for ways to validate their model so as to begin with its transfer into the Shuar health posts and villages (The Shuar population is aproximately 80,000 people living in 400 villages). In collaboration with the official system of the Health Ministry, an intercultural investigation proposal is now being worked out to assess the relevance of this model. From the DMT's point of view it is more about studying the ways in which these herbal medicines are being prescribed and work rather than carry out conventional clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of medicinal plants. There are no standardized prescriptions. Each patient is treated according to the herbalist intuition and based on their social, cultural and emotional situation. The Shuar have relied upon herbal medicine for hundreds of thousands of years and it is only recently that the introduction of western medicine has jeopardized it. Thus the DMT program stands as a cultural reaffirmation strategy which claims recognition and demands acceptance of its value from the official health system and beyond its conventional scientific approach and understanding.
At the moment this paper is being written, the official health system has just accepted this challenging investigation and, together with the DMT's staff, its elaboration is under progress. Any suggestions from learned or experienced researchers are welcome.
Please contact the DMT at sani@c.ecua.net.ec for more information.
