With us or against us? A critical appraisal of the draft traditional and alternative medicine legislation in Ghana

Abstract

The Traditional Medicine Practice Act 2000 (Act 575) was enacted to promote traditional medicine in Ghana. In as much as the act meant to streamline the practice of Traditional Medicine in Ghana, it further inadvertently created a lacuna in the profession of complementary and alternative medicine. Due to this, policymakers found the need to repeal Act 575 to pave way for new legislation. This led to the drafting of the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Bill 2014 in Ghana. The bill has however been left hanging with no direction, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. It is currently unclear, whether policymakers or political actors are with or against the Complementary and Alternative Medicine fraternity in Ghana. In this regard, this paper presents a critical appraisal and document analysis of this important Bill drafted in 2014, in a bid to highlight the need for Ghanaian policymakers to pass this bill into fruition, to advance the course of complementary and alternative Medicine in Ghana.