Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

He trains Ugandans to use acupuncture

Rate this topic


Guest guest

Recommended Posts

Guest guest

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2007/07/16/he_trains_ug\

andans_to_use_acupuncture/

 

Brookline specialist takes needles, hope to the heart of the African

AIDS epidemic

 

By Melissa Jeltsen, Globe Correspondent | July 16, 2007

 

IBANDA, Uganda -- At a health center in this tiny rural community in

southwestern Uganda, an HIV-positive pregnant woman rests on a thin

foam mattress supported by a rusting steel bed frame. Needles 15

inches long protrude from her legs, ears, and chest. Leaning over her,

a young Ugandan man in an ironed white shirt and brown dress pants

waves a smoldering stick of moxa, a sweet-smelling medicinal herb.

 

The practitioner is not a traditional African healer, and the woman is

not undergoing some folk medicine treatment -- at least not a Ugandan one.

 

She is receiving traditional Chinese acupuncture, and the Ugandan

nurse administering it is a trainee of the Pan-African Acupuncture

Project, an organization based in Brookline. Since 2003,

acupuncturists volunteering for the project have traveled to this

impoverished nation to teach acupuncture to health professionals who

treat patients for many of the complications associated with HIV/AIDS.

 

Richard Mandell, 54, a teacher at the New England School of

Acupuncture, created the non profit four years ago in response to the

overwhelming number of people infected with HIV in Africa. He had

watched his Boston patients with HIV/AIDS respond positively to

acupuncture, and he began to daydream about going to Africa to treat

people in need.

 

" I felt like I had to go. And then I thought, this is silly, one

person can't change Africa, " he said with a smile.

 

His program was born a year later.

 

Instead of flying to Africa to help the afflicted by himself, he

decided to train African healthcare workers to practice acupuncture

themselves. " I wanted to empower them so that they have the

knowledge, " he said.

 

Mandell wrote a manual that simplified instruction, directing students

on how to find acupuncture points on the body and how to use needles.

The manual enables students to practice acupuncture even if they don't

understand why a specific point correlates with the particular

ailment. The program has trained 120 Ugandans in three districts.

 

On the small dirt street outside the health center, children duck and

play, yelling " muzunga, " meaning " white people, " when they spot the

seven licensed acupuncturists who come from Boston for two weeks. The

visitors will train 15 nurses, midwives and other healthcare workers

to use acupuncture for the symptoms of HIV/AIDS and for the side

effects of antiretroviral therapy.

 

Inside, the trainees move about the room, holding their manuals and

consulting maps of the body. Some work in pairs while others are

confident enough to talk with a patient, choose correct points, and

treat individuals on their own.

 

The pregnant woman on the bed smiles as the Ugandan nurse removes the

acupuncture needles. He converses with her quietly and quickly in her

native tongue, encouraging her to visit the hospital 2 miles north for

prenatal antiretroviral drugs that would greatly reduce the risk of

passing her infection to her unborn child. She agrees and leaves the

center with a shy thank you.

 

Uganda, by most estimates, has more than 1 million people with

HIV/AIDS, out of a total population of about 28 million. Mandell said

he chose Uganda, where the average annual salary is $280, for the

acupuncture project because health officials were the most responsive

of all the Sub- Saharan African countries he attempted to contact.

 

Introducing acupuncture into a poor country with tremendous sickness

has many benefits, he said, including economic. Acupuncture is cheap.

After training, the only supplies needed are the inexpensive needles,

some cotton balls, and the moxa (artemis vulgaris), an herb that can

be grown locally and used to heat up the needled areas and encourage

energy. It costs $6 to treat one patient once a week for a month, he said.

 

Western medical studies support the idea that acupuncture can help

those with HIV/AIDS. According to the National Institutes of Health,

acupuncture significantly helps chronic diarrhea and insomnia, two

recurring symptoms often experienced by HIV patients.

 

Believed to have originated in China more than 2,000 years ago,

acupuncture is one of the oldest, most commonly used medical

procedures in the world. At its most basic, acupuncture is the act of

placing thin needles into specific points on the body.

 

According to Chinese medical theory, the body is full of invisible

channels that circulate energy, called qi, throughout the body. The

acupuncture points are believed to be the locations where the qi rises

close to the surface, and the treatments work, according to Chinese

medical theory, by normalizing the free flow of qi throughout the body.

 

When villagers hear that Westerners are in town offering a free

treatment, the word spreads like a brush fire. Each day, almost a

hundred people show up -- some with HIV/AIDS, some with other ailments

-- and wait patiently to be seen and " pricked. "

 

On the clinic's designated HIV/AIDS day, a lanky 6-foot shoeless man

stood up and greeted stands up and greets Mandell. He says he received

an acupuncture treatment in December, and afterward , he felt more

alive. He delivers his testimony to the crowd, and people listen.

 

David Koojo, a health counselor from the Virika Hospital four hours

away, did his third and final training with the Boston group this

spring. Although he has been using Western medicine for the past 15

years, he said he has no reservations about incorporating acupuncture.

 

" We have tried Western medicine; let's try Chinese medicine. From what

I've seen, very many people have been to hospitals [and their] pain

has not been relieved. Here, I've seen results in a single day, " he

said, while treating a patient with an enlarged spleen. He thinks

acupuncture, which doesn't have the side effects of Western medicine,

should be accepted as another way of relieving pain.

 

" Perhaps Western medicine is partly working and partly failing, " he said.

 

Mandell hopes to expand his program (panafricanacupuncture.org) to

Malawi and other African nations.

 

" We aren't claiming this to be a cure -- we are doing it to improve

quality of life, " he said. " It's not a miracle. I wish it were. "

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...