The “Relevance” of the African Traditional Medicine (Alternative Medicine) to Health Care Delivery System in Nigeria
This paper set out to examine the relevance of the African Traditional Medicine in Health Care Delivery Services in Nigeria. This has become necessary for three main reasons: Firstly, African Traditional Medicine Practitioners provided the earliest medical care in Nigeria. Secondly, the World Health Organisation has recognized the need to integrate the traditional medicine on the orthodox medicine when it defines it, as the total combination of knowledge and practices, whether explicable or not, used in diagnosing, preventing or eliminating physical, mental or social diseases. Thirdly, there are claims by the practitioners that since orthodox medicine cannot cure all diseases; hence, they can intervene in the areas where orthodox medicine is weak. Such areas include, social psychiatry, hypertension, diabetes, epilepsy and other psychosomatic illnesses. The researcher thus took a purposive sample of one hundred and fifty consisting of (50) traditional medicine practitioners, 50 orthodox medicine practitioners and 50 patients using interview and questionnaire administration to garner information on the relevance of traditional medicine in the Health Care Delivery system in Nigeria. Participant observation method was also used to reinforce the interview and questionnaire administration respectively. Secondary data were also obtained from the traditional medical clinics visited in Ibadan, Oyo, lIe-lfe and Ikire all in South Western Nigeria. Data collected were analysed descriptively and the findings are that: (i) African traditional medicine predated orthodox medicine in Nigeria; (ii) Traditional medical care is strong in some areas where the orthodox medicine is not very effective; (iii) There are problems associated with administration of traditional medical care such as issues of measurability of its drugs, dosage, preparation, documentation, preservation, potency and determination of the side effect and (iv) if the shortcomings are rectified, then, the African traditional medicine has a lot to offer in saving lives of African citizens and beyond the continent. The paper concluded that there is a need to properly integrate and blend African medicine on the orthodox medicine because such reinforcement will be of immense advantage to the sick and humanity in general.
Traditional medicine in China today: implications for indigenous health systems in a modern world.
In the United States, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is recognized by the National Institutes of Health as an effective complementary and alternative medicine modality, widely used by consumers and growing as a profession.1–3 Ironically, while TCM is expanding in the United States, it may be contracting in China as a result of dramatic health care reforms and changing cultural values. There is, however, little information in Western literature explicitly delineating the impacts of these forces on TCM. The purpose of this inquiry was to interview a sample of select respondents, particularly individuals from a major Chinese college of traditional medicine, regarding their perceptions of the field. The results provided insight into the survival and assimilation of indigenous health systems in a modern world. 
 
In the late 1970s, Deng Xiao Ping introduced elements of the market economy into China. During the 1990s, significant health care reforms were also initiated. These reforms placed a new emphasis on profitability, economic autonomy for health facilities, and decentralization of public health services and contributed to the demise of the rural cooperative medical system.4–6 These reforms also produced fundamental changes in health care financing, including replacing free universal health care with fee-for-service and private insurance strategies.4,7 This has contributed to increased medical care costs, higher out-of-pocket expenses, growing inequity in access, a reduction of prevention programs in poor areas, and pricing policies that encourage overprescribing drugs and high-tech services.4,7,8–10 As a significant percentage of all health care delivered in China is in the form of traditional treatments,11 such reforms will invariably affect this ancient healing system as well.
Current and projected workforce of nonphysician clinicians.
Nonphysician clinicians (NPCs) are becoming increasingly prominent as health care providers. This study examines 10 such disciplines: nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), nurse-midwives, chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, optometrists, podiatrists, nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse specialists. The aggregate number of NPCs graduating annually in these 10 disciplines doubled between 1992 and 1997, and a further increment of 20% is projected for 2001. Assuming that enrollments remain at the levels attained in 2001, NPC supply will grow from 228000 in 1995 to 384000 in 2005, and it will continue to expand at a similar rate thereafter. The greatest growth is projected among those NPCs who provide primary care services. Moreover, the greatest concentrations of both practicing NPCs and NPC training programs are in those states that already have the greatest abundance of physicians. On a per capita basis, the projected growth in NPC supply between 1995 and 2005 will be double that of physicians. Because of the existing training pipeline, it is probable that most of the growth projected for 2005 will occur. The further expansion of both NPC and physician supply thereafter warrants careful reconsideration.