Ramechhap, Dec 22: Although many organisations have been running awareness campaigns across the country, people’s faith in witch doctors and shamans still continue.
The trend of people visiting witch doctors when falling ill is prevalent mostly in rural areas than in city areas. In most cases, depending on witch doctors, who are often called traditional healers, for medical treatment has resulted in death.
Witch doctors and shamans are often accused of not rightly advising and referring visiting patients to health institutions, thus risking their lives, and in some cases, they are found to have been implicated in torturing people particularly poor women on the charge of practicing witchcraft, leading to their death in some cases.
But, lately, there are reports that some witch doctors have started cooperating with medical doctors in the treatment of ill people, thanks to awareness.
Coming to people’s belief in witch doctors, many people in Ramechhap district have still held the faith and visited witch doctors when people fall ill. Not only rural areas, the district headquarters has also witnessed the practice.
Pratik Bohara of Likhu Tamakoshi Rural Municipality-7 is a witch doctor. All his great grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers and uncles had been into this profession, and he has been following this profession since he was a child, he shared.
He has been serving at the Ashram at Swayambhu Karkhana Chowk in Kathmandu apart from serving in his home ward, municipality and district from time to time.
“Patients who are shivering due to the “power of spirit” come to visit me. I wholeheartedly treat them,” he said.
He however viewed that cheating common people by arbitrarily taking fees in the name of a witch doctor or a shaman is not a good practice, and the state should book those who do such activities.
He informed that the Nepal Jhankri Association has formed a monitoring team to identity the fraudsters while stressing the need for witch doctors to do this job for the preservation of tradition and culture.
“This is not a business, it should be developed as a culture.” He is of the view that all witch doctors in the country should come under one organisation for the regulation of those who are affecting the reputation of actual witch doctors.
However, experts have blamed factors like the lack of awareness and access to health facilities for people’s dependence on witch doctors and shamans.
In the fiscal year, 2023/24, the Government of Nepal allocated the total Rs 83.99 billion budget, an increase of Rs 14 billion as compared to Rs 69.99 billion allocated in the previous FY.
Besides, many non-governmental organisations and donor agencies have run many health programmes in Nepal.
But, many people have lacked an access to primary health facilities. According to a recent study published by the Health Research Policy and Systems, 19.2 percent of the population of Nepal lacked access to primary health facilities within 30 minutes’ walk.
It means 79.8 percent of the population could access primary health facilities within 20 minutes’ walk, which is however higher than the Nepal Living Standard Survey in the fiscal year, 2010/11 (which was 61.8 percent).
