By URN
Ugandans are thirty more times more able to receive medical care from traditional healers or herbalists compared to Western-trained medical doctors according to medical experts.

Data from the health ministry shows that at the moment the patient healer ratio stands at one healer for every 700 hundred people. This is low compared to the one doctor, 25,000 patients ratio in regard to medical doctors.

The revelation was made by the director-general of the Uganda National Health Research Organisation Dr Sam Okware during a herbal researchers workshop.
Dr Okware says the traditional healers are more popular than medical doctors in some communities due to the way they carry out their work. According to Okware, unlike medical doctors who are placed in health facilities that are often far away from communities, traditional healers are found within communities.
In 2019, parliament approved the Traditional and Complementary Medical Medicine Act that spells out regulations and guidelines pertaining to herbal medicine in Uganda.