Traditional Healers Meet at Kolli hills

Centre for Traditional Medicine and Research, Chennai is carrying out a project entitled ‘Documentation and Validation of Local Health Traditions’ in Salem, Namakkal, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts of Tamilnadu with grant from Department of Ayush. Govt.of India. So far over 220 traditional healers have been interviewed and their healing practices documented. As Part of the field based research activity a one day ‘Traditional Healers Conference’ was organized at Block Development office Meeting Hall at Semmedu, Kolli hills in Namakkal District on 3rd April 2010. Over 80 tribal healers and 20 self-help group women leaders took part in the meeting from the different villages of Kolli hills. Eight institutionally trained Siddha physicians and field staff of ISM, forest department also took part in the meet. Dr.M.A Kumar, Deputy Advisor- Siddha and Nodal Officer for LHT projects. Department of Ayush presided over the inaugural session and delivered a lecture detailing the objective of this intervention, mainly to revive the lost healthy traditional health practices which will reduce the health expenditure burden of the community. He stressed that the traditional medical science has survived this long, mainly due to the oral traditions handed over by the healers to the next generation. He also wanted the healers to record them even if they are not immediately willing to share them. He said Govt. is for reviving the safe traditional practices while acting strict on exploitation in the name of Traditional Medicine. Dr.T.Anandan, Director i/c of Siddha Central Research institute lauded the service rendered by the traditional healers for their services to the humanity in remote forest areas. In his inaugural address he emphasized the need to live in harmony with nature, as living in harmony with nature is the cornerstone of health care in traditional medicine and appealed to the practitioners to use the medicinal plants in a sustainable way and regenerate them in home gardens,
Community parks and as hedge crop in their agricultural land.Four vaidyas Mooligai selvaraj, Ponnusamy, K.P.Varadharajan and SC Balliya presented their healing practices and appealed to other practitioners to share their experience

Dr.T.Thirunarayanan shared the findings of the research so far and the healers took active part in the deliberations which followed. Vaidya S.Usman Ali, director – CTMR made a presentation on the Plants of Kolli hills and their utility, sustainable usage techniques. Dr.Balamurugan of Rasipuram, Dr.Thamaraiselvi, Dr.Jeyabarathi and Dr. Vadivelan Siddha medical officers of Kolli hills shared the views of the institutionally trained Siddha physicians and expressed their willingness to work closely with traditional healers. Dr. G. Senthilvel of CCRAS Delhi and Dr.H.R.Vasanthi Asst. Prof of Biochemistry Sri Ramachandra Medical university were also present in the meeting to explore the possibility of future research in this area.The healers displayed the fresh plants used by them, Raw drugs used by them and rare form of medicines prepared by them. The healers also visited the medicinal plants garden maintained in the botanical garden and Vaidya. S.Usman Ali explained to them the propagation technique to be adopted for different plants.

Dr.S.Rajkumar of CTMR and Dr. Oliver king of MSSRF acted as facilitators for the vaidyas.