Thursday, March 28, 2024

Traditional healer charged with murder after a failed ‘surgery’

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Police in Chingola have arrested a traditional healer who cut a growth on a woman’s private parts and applied herbs on the wound, the patient later died.

The traditional healer has been charged with murder.

Copperbelt Deputy Police Commissioner Milner Muyambango confirmed the incident to ZNBC News in Kitwe and named the victim as Katongo Sichone who died after profuse bleeding.

Mr. Muyambango said Welling Gondwe 55 cut-off the growth on the woman’s private parts.

However, the patient started bleeding heavily until the traditional healer became scared and took the woman to the hospital where she later died.

Mr. Muyambango said the traditional healer was arrested yesterday.

[ZNBC]

28 COMMENTS

  1. Modern surgery would have been the solution. These so called traditional healers use barbaric methods that hardly ever work. Sad for the woman’s family…..

  2. Too bad for the woman (MHSRIP). By now, people should know how important it is to consult professional medical practitioners for treatment of certain diseases. I don’t mean to underrate the usefulness of African herbs for medicine but when it comes to complicated things like cancerous growths and certain epidemics, I think there is no remedy to be expected from herbs alone.

  3. it would be folly and imprudent of anyone to completely condemn our traditional healers and to be foolish enough to even condemn them jail because of this one incidence.Before the white man came with his so called conventional methods,we had traditional healers.And what about the many of our brothers that have died at the hands of these same conventional doctors and their medicines,wat do u say about that?its sad and really unfortunate it turned out that way.however lets not judge on this blog as there are people tasked to handle such

  4. The case is going nowhere unfortunately because he took precaution by sending the woman to hospital. In other words he ‘referred’ when the unexpected complications ensued.

  5. Unfortunately many traditional healers are fake. Years ago I spent a lot of money on one healer who really exploited my illness. I had indembos all over my body to chase away bad sprits. I bathed in stinky herbs every night. The problem only got worse. Luckly I moved to Congo, of all places and the doctors operated on me and removed the apendix. 20 yrs later, fit as a fibble.

    I’m not bashing traditional healers, am sure there are good ones out there I have just not found one yet. It is sad that this lady passed on. When you are sick you are vulnarable and are at the mercy of any crooks. RIP.

  6. #7 Dont Kubwata – I conqur with your reasoning and I also feel that traditional healers have a role to play. However, I am wary of the fact that they are unregulated and you cannot tell the difference between a real healer and a fake one. In this instance, an operation should have taken place in a theatre where chances of survival would be much higher. I would hope we could regulate traditional medicine where it could be an intergral part of doctors training.

  7. hats off to all who are cognisant to the fact that our traditional healers have a large role to play in our society and just as happens in the western medical arena, we do have quacks. lest people forget, our parents , grandparents, great grandparents… in short our ancestors were well served with these treatments, and mark my words, these were developed over centuries, no way can you just trash all the accumulated wisdom like what the white man did. the worst thing is that our fathers for one reason or another did not see the need for any form of record keeping like what our brothers in china did with their traditional chinese medicine. i think to all progressive like minds out there, we need to come together and reclaim this legacy… first we need to get rid of the quacks, then develop

  8. a structured curriculum for the study, practice and regulation of the profession and seek ways of integrating this with modern medicine

  9. #2 Ba Chale, I think you are wrong today or you are advising wrong people. Do you know that the late auntie Katongo consulted your modern Zambian hospitals? Do you know how much money she was asked to pay in your hospitals? Did you know if she was discharged from hospital before, and told that there are no doctors in Zambia who could help her, except in South Africa or India?
    And now you are blaming her wrong decision as if you experienced her pain? May the lord grant her eternal peace.

  10. How old is this woman? Is she married?
    Dr Gondwe should have just given the instructions and let elderly women execute it. The target was definitely an awkward place for Gondwe to practice his surgery skills. I know he can do the other thing better than surgery: he is an easterner.
    But anyway, as a traditional healer his role should be limited to spiritual realm and try to cure things from that angle. 

  11. I know of a case similar to this one except that this one was not fatal. The involved woman was married to a very possessive man who sought the assistance of a traditional healer.He administered some medicine on the wife and had the woman’s ‘thing’ sealed leaving only a small opening for urine discharge. The woman-very beautiful- found a lover here in kitwe, but when the man one day tried to put, there was no penetration ; the thing had closed. She felt too embarrassed. She consulted a witch doctor who tried to open her up with a razor.The results were disastrous: She bled nearly to death.

  12. The charge should be involuntary manslaughter not murder. The patient died from complications or bleeding. The traditional healer didn’t have an intention to kill.

  13. People die even in formal modern surgery from bleeding and other complications. The case must be investigated by medical experts and medical malpractice lawyers who know what they are doing.

  14. Consulting witchdoctors is an abomination to the Lord our God! You can’t mix light nd darkness! God forbids it. That is direct contact with satan and his forces. That is why you end up demon- possessed some of you! Be careful. Me i can’t go to a witch doctor, NEVER!

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