The unsystematic alternative: Towards plural health care among the Kikuyu of Central Kenya

Abstract

The traditional medical care system exists and functions in Kenya along with the modern medical system forming a plural health care system. Although the oldest and the most widespread, the former is the least understood and least accepted in any formal way, by Kenyan authorities. This is mainly due to the fact that the system is fluid and unsystematic, lacking in any form a working code of ethics and conceptualised often along the basis of ethnic cultural beliefs and practices on illness and disease. The approach is by no means static. Included in this approach are ethnic traditions and values, folk knowledge, medical taxonomy, patterns and regulations of health-seeking behaviour, supportive social institutions and structures as well as personnel used in the delivery of restorative and preventive therapy.