Witch Doctors at Work in Kibogora Area

The problem of “traditional healers” or more accurately described as “witch doctors “is still encountered. Very often patients arrive at the hospital in a very poor state because they have been “treated” sometimes for prolonged periods by these charlatans and very often are past any possible chance of recovery and die soon after arriving at the hospital. There have been reported incidents of these “healers” telling the relatives of the sick person that if they take them to hospital the mazungo (foreign) doctors will kill them. When the patient dies in hospital they claim to have been correct and use this to scare other sick people into using their services rather than going to hospital.

A young man arrived at the hospital recently with some peculiar marks on his head. His mother confirmed that he had been taken to one of these “healers” because he had an “evil spirit” in his head and the witch doctor had treated the boy by pressing a red hot nail head into his scalp. Fortunately the child has no obvious negative effects of this bizarre treatment and the only sign of his encounter with witchcraft is an interesting pattern on his head.