The Sunday News
Valencia Ndhlovu, Sunday News Reporter
IN a world where traditional and modern medicine are always at parallel and at loggerheads, a balance has been fixed as the appreciation for both cures has been enforced.
Normally when people are in search of healing, they resort to modern medicine as the first alternative but Thembani Poly Clinic in Cowdray Park, Bulawayo has broken the norm. Sunday News spoke to the owner of the clinic Mrs Rebecca Ndiweni, a qualified registered general nurse who studied in Rwanda to further her knowledge of traditional herbs.
Hypertension medication
She took what she learnt in Rwanda to train her staff at the unique clinic and has since seen the facility grow in leaps and bounds over the years, with a number of success stories.
The clinic has been operating since March 2003 and till today people travel from all over the country and around the world to seek help.
It is from this clinic that people have been healed from hypertension, cancer, and sugar diabetes, and one patient from Nairobi was healed from kidney stones. Mrs Ndiweni said as a clinic their goal was to go back to using traditional medicines that were used by their ancestors, and incorporating them with modern medicines.
“In our experience, we have found out that chronic diseases are better treated using natural medicine but sometimes we combine it with modern medicines, for example, we give our patients modern medicine three hours after giving them natural medicine. We are very careful when it comes to this and monitor our patients very closely.
By chronic diseases, I mean diseases like stroke, diabetes, and all types of cancer like prostate cancer, cervical cancer, and leukemia, we have successfully treated a breast cancer patient from England who was taking natural medicine, and no operation was done,” said Mrs Ndiweni.
When Sunday News visited Thembani Clinic, there was a patient suffering from arthritis who was on treatment.
The elderly patient, identified as Mrs Dube, came from Kezi to get help from the clinic. She has been admitted at the clinic for the past two weeks.
“When she arrived at the clinic she could not walk as her knees could not bend. We have been performing geotherapy on the patient and also conducting physiology, and dietology to pay close attention to her diet. In the process of geotherapy we apply clay or mud, which is mixed with herbs, on her legs, the patient has to wait for two hours before this mixture is removed, to relieve pain and reduce stiffness.
Cancer
Mrs Dube is also taking natural medicine and this has helped a lot since she can bend her knees and can now walk,” said Mrs Ndiweni.
The herbs that are used to make the medicine are taken from the fields and surroundings which are tree leaves, roots, and bucks. They get some of the herbs from their own plantation and manufacture medicine from them.
One of the nurses at Thembani Poly Clinic, Ms Barbara Moyo said; “We have helped people who would have lost all hope, especially stroke patients who are helpless and can’t do anything. We heal any sickness even when someone comes and doesn’t know what the matter is with their health. We then identify it by simply looking at their hand or under their feet and are able to tell what the matter is. Headaches can also be healed by simply giving a patient a massage on the head to loosen up the tense muscles without even having to offer any medication.
