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Background: The popularity of the services of traditional bone setters (TBS) in Ghana as an alternative health care requires exploration and documentation of the perspectives of providers and users. 

Objective: To explore and document the perspectives of providers and users of the services of TBS in the management of musculoskeletal injuries in the Ashanti region, Ghana.

Methods: From the social constructivist and qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were used to explore the perspectives of eight TBS and 16 users of their services, selected purposively through snowballing. Thematic content analysis (TCA) was employed.

Results: High recovery rate, warm reception, prompt attention, and the relatively lower charges, are reported to motivate the patronage of the services of TBS for the management of fractures in the legs, arms, ribs, joint bones dislocations, waist and spinal cord problems. The TBS combined traditional and orthodox procedures, using plant and animal-based materials, beliefs, spirituality (God-given) and physical therapy in the management of musculoskeletal injuries. No adverse experience was reported by either the providers or users of the traditional management methods.

Conclusion: With plant and animal-based materials, TBS are observed to combine traditional and orthodox procedures to confidently manage musculoskeletal injuries to the satisfaction of their highly motivated patrons. Although over 60% of the TBS attribute the healing power behind their practice to God, the rest do not discount the role of spiritual therapy. Further studies expanded to include the perspectives of non-users of the services of the TBS will authenticate the findings of this study.

We have had two ‘cultures of critique'. One is where critique of a culture's own principles is generated internally. The other is when critique is mounted from the outside. This paper is an attempt to shore up the two-fold nature of both culture of critique and critique of culture through a close examination of an extant and entrenched cultural practice provisionally called ‘faith healing' in its interlocution with western mental health models that are incumbent upon the Indian setting. This paper will explore what critical theory may need to consider in the context of India. Would it need a cultural turn, a culturalising? What is meant by culturalising? Would ‘culturalising', in turn, be premised on a bidirectional or dual critique, that is, a critique of both the West's hegemonic principles as well as principles that hegemonize the East, emanating from either the West or from the East? What relation would critique set up with an existing culture and cultural practice? What relation would culture set up with an existing culture of critique? In the process, this paper is also an attempt to inaugurate and locate the beginning coordinates of a critique of critique through the turn to culture in conditions called ‘faith healing'. The paper is also about the tense and troubled dialogue between the current globalization of certain frameworks in mental health, and local (faith-based) practices of health and healing that have survived in India; survived even in mutation and transformation, through colonialism, civilizing mission, welfarism and developmentalism. How would the knowledge and practice of mental health take shape in India – a landscape crisscrossed by on the one hand, aggressively modern institutions of mental health science and on the other, extant and surviving institutions of faith-based healing practices? While we remain critically mired in faith-based practices, while we cannot but be critical of some faith-based practices, we also cannot announce the silent demise of all Other imaginations of health and healing and let One global discourse take hold of all cultures. Hence, perhaps the need for what we have called the difficult ‘dual critique’. For critique also means an account of and an attention to experience and practice; an account formulated on its own terms and not on terms put in place by globalizing discourses. 

Disability and the Global South, 2014, Vol. 1 No. 2

This article focuses on the management of epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries and recommends a package of care - a combination of interventions aimed at improving the recognition and management of conditions to achieve optimal outcomes - for epilepsy, that is sustainable

Originally published in 1995, A Book for Midwives has been a comprehensive resource for practicing midwives and midwifery training programmes around the world. This new edition has been extensively updated and revised to reflect new WHO/UNICEF guidelines and standards for mothers and newborn children.This book covers the essentials of care before, during, and after birth, providing a variety of designs for low-cost equipment and training materials. It includes new information on helping women stay healthy during pregnancy; helping mothers have safer labors and births; preventing, managing, and treating obstetric emergencies; breastfeeding; the health needs of new babies; and involving the community in improving the health of mothers and pregnant women. It also includes new information about treatment and medications for HIV and other sexually transmitted infectons; vaccinations, medicines, and drug interactions; infection prevention; improved methods for dealing with complicated deliveries; and new and updated information on family planning

This is the fourth booklet in this revised toolkit to raise awareness and promote practical action to challenge HIV stigma and discrimination. Module F focuses on coping with stigma and module G on treatment and stigma. The toolkit was written by and for HIV trainers in Africa and changes and additions were made with the help of a regional trainers network workshop in Zambia in August 2005

IK Notes report on indigenous knowledge initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa and occasionally on such initiatives outside the region. It is published by the World Bank Africa region's Knowledge and Learning Centre as part of an evolving partnership between the World Bank, communities, NGOs, development institutions and multilateral organisations. This edition outlines the role of grandmothers as 'managers' of indigenous knowledge systems that deal with the development, care and well being of women and their children. The paper outlines a rationale for involving grandmothers in community programmes based around child and maternal health, and nutrition

This article reports the results of a study to evaluate the effect of home-based neonatal care on birth asphyxia and to compare the effectiveness of trained traditional birth attendants and village health workers in using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, tube-mask or bag-mask interventions