Traditional Medicine - The Complement

In an almost empty auditorium, as a side-event of the 21st session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the association PENGEA presented the documentary film "Curacion el Camino de la Sintesis" from the author Rosa Calleldevall.

This documentary (appx. 30 minutes long and taking place in Cuba) portrayed different perceptions of health. The author who strongly believes in mysticism, aimed to show the importance of spirituality in the search of health and happiness as well as the overall importance of traditional medicine.

Along the documentary, different medical doctors and people who practice traditional medicine were interviewed and asked to give definitions of concepts such as health, life, death and love. While love was defined as the path to happiness and to good resulting treatments, so consequently of life, the definition of death was some how more controversial. "Death is the failure of medicine," said a general doctor, while others identify death as a more spiritual concept.

Based on the different interviews it could be concluded that the big mistake of the "Western Medicine" is to leave aside the psychological aspect of illness and to concentrate mainly if not only on it biological feature. "Western Medicine" should be complement with traditional knowledge, no matter the academic background of their source.

In the context of the Working Group, is important to highlight the main message: Traditional medicine is important because, love is the most significant tool in treatment but specially equality when it comes to treat the patients.

By: Paula Bula

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