Legal bone throwing has doctors hopping mad.

Western medical practitioners are hopping mad at the looming prospect of traditional healers and pharmacists, among other health care workers, being legally empowered to diagnose and treat patients and even write sick notes. The legal bones were thrown in the form of a government gazette of 10 October this year that signalled Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's intent to introduce the Traditional Health Practitioners' Bill before the end of the year. Similar legislation will flay open the formerly exclusive preserve of doctors to nurses, pharmacists and other non-medical health professionals. The 'Sangoma Bill', as some doctors call it, will establish an Interim Traditional Health Practitioners' Council, the registration of traditional health practitioners, fees they may charge, restrictions on unregistered practitioners, disciplinary inquiries and investigations by the council. While most doctors welcomed the regulation of traditional healers, they were angry and deeply suspicious of the effect of the legislation and vowed to fight it. Chairman of the labour law committee of the law society of South Africa, Jan Stemmett, said the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (97) allowed for, 'any other person (besides a medical practitioner) who was certified to diagnose and treat patients and who was registered with a professional council established by an act of parliament', to issue a medical certificate for sick leave. 'When I saw the notice in the government gazette, I put two and two together. It appears they're making room for traditional healers to be recognised,' he said. Department of Health spokesperson, Joanne Collinge, agreed that if the bill in its current form becomes law and the 'whole process of establishing the council' is completed and groups of traditional practitioners are registered, then: 'Yes, those letters issued by practitioners would have status in terms of labour law'. Stemmett said that from an employer's perspective, sick notes from sangomas 'could be problematic'. 'The employer will have to prove that it's genuine because you can't just terminate services. There will be grey areas if some employee has just disappeared and comes back after a long time.' Labour law obliged employers to be 'fair and reasonable', and it would be difficult to establish whether the medical certificate was real or whether the employee was 'moonlighting somewhere else' (for example). Dr Shadrick Mazaza, former member of the South African Medical Association's Health Policy Committee wrote his 1995 Master's thesis on the relationship between traditional healers and doctors in a district …