Traditional Healers considered valid by supreme court.

[Sylvana]

I am officially ashamed of how backwards my country can be sometimes.

Triumph for traditional healers

After this ruling it basically makes any sick note written out by a traditional healer to be considered valid and of equal weight to a qualified doctor. Which means you can legally be allowed to take sick leave for things like "possessed by ancestors" and other such rubbish. What is worse is that the government is actually trying to introduce some kind of system to force some kind of legitimacy for traditional healers. Last I checked you can study to become one, and be regarded as an equal to any other doctor.

Literally, this is substituting factual studies for superstition and trying to make them have the save validity. It makes me deeply disheartened.

[mellenORL]

Great. Fucking legitimizing the inevitable tragedies of untreated diseases and conditions.

Now the uber fundie faith healers here can cite South African law as "precedent".
There are legislatures in some states here so full of derps it could pass, or if not on the state level, possibly in some counties, who would like the "licensing" fees for their coffers regardless.

[Ironchew]

After this ruling it basically makes any sick note written out by a traditional healer to be considered valid and of equal weight to a qualified doctor. Which means you can legally be allowed to take sick leave for things like "possessed by ancestors" and other such rubbish. What is worse is that the government is actually trying to introduce some kind of system to force some kind of legitimacy for traditional healers. Last I checked you can study to become one, and be regarded as an equal to any other doctor.

Fabricated notes for sick days are the least of my worries; I am of the opinion that we should have far more paid vacation time in this country and that it should be illegal to coerce an employee to work more than 40 hours a week. No, something like this will give charlatans the veneer of authority they need to dissuade people that actually need medical care from getting it.

EDIT: Almost had me thinking that was the United States for a second. I will now assert my overbearing nationalism by not giving a fuck about politics in South Africa.

[RavynousHunter]

I give it five minutes before the good folks at Stormfront start voicing "surprise" that witch-doctors weren't considered legitimate in an African country in the first place.

[Witchyjoshy]

After this ruling it basically makes any sick note written out by a traditional healer to be considered valid and of equal weight to a qualified doctor. Which means you can legally be allowed to take sick leave for things like "possessed by ancestors" and other such rubbish. What is worse is that the government is actually trying to introduce some kind of system to force some kind of legitimacy for traditional healers. Last I checked you can study to become one, and be regarded as an equal to any other doctor.

Fabricated notes for sick days are the least of my worries; I am of the opinion that we should have far more paid vacation time in this country and that it should be illegal to coerce an employee to work more than 40 hours a week. No, something like this will give charlatans the veneer of authority they need to dissuade people that actually need medical care from getting it.

EDIT: Almost had me thinking that was the United States for a second. I will now assert my overbearing nationalism by not giving a fuck about politics in South Africa.

If it makes you feel better, there's a summer class devoted to alternative medicine at the college I went to.

I remember getting pretty angry about that.

On-topic:

This is all sorts of ridiculous.  This is a big reason why religion, any religion period, should have no part in the government.

The only role government should play in religion is protecting the people's right to practice or not practice a religion so long as that religion doesn't infringe on other people's rights.

[Yla]

If it makes you feel better, there's a summer class devoted to alternative medicine at the college I went to.

I remember getting pretty angry about that.

Lacking further context and beneficially assuming that the class was of a informative and objective nature, why were you angry about that?

[Witchyjoshy]

If it makes you feel better, there's a summer class devoted to alternative medicine at the college I went to.

I remember getting pretty angry about that.

Lacking further context and beneficially assuming that the class was of a informative and objective nature, why were you angry about that?

Because it was a class about teaching how to do alternative medicine, not teaching about it.

[Sylvana]

If it makes you feel better, there's a summer class devoted to alternative medicine at the college I went to.

I remember getting pretty angry about that.

Lacking further context and beneficially assuming that the class was of a informative and objective nature, why were you angry about that?

Because it was a class about teaching how to do alternative medicine, not teaching about it.

You get courses that teach one there alternative medicines, but society basically does not take it seriously. The South African government wants to actually make it that reputable universities have to give out doctorates in medicine to people who study to become traditional healers. Almost all universities will have the one class on alternative medicine but people don't take it seriously and just take the class to get some easy extra credit. It worries me when there are actual government sanctioned degrees in it that is a problem.