Home Institution

Transylvania University

Publication Date

Summer 2013

Program Name

Madagascar: Traditional Medicine and Health Care Systems

Abstract

This paper expounds the shortcomings of the mental health provisions inherent in the current primary health care system in Madagascar in light of its limited accessibility to the Malagasy. Integrating traditional medicine with allopathic psychiatric care is proposed, with attention to prevailing Malagasy beliefs in spiritual possession as the basis for mental illness, in order to accommodate the discrepant worldviews espoused by physicians and their Malagasy patients that inhibit the efficacy of public mental health care. Through an integrated system based on the model piloted at the Clinique de Manongarivo in northwestern Madagascar, the financial, physical, and epistemological barriers that presently stunt the reach of the public mental health services would be dissolved in order to promote sustainability in the domains of economy and biodiversity.

Disciplines

Community Health | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Mental and Social Health

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