South Africa's traditional healers join fight against Aids

A government programme enhances support offered by witchdoctors

'Doctor' Lela Bathobele's surgery has no magazines in the waiting room - only a broken couch and dozens of old peanut butter jars filled with dried animal entrails, tree bark and the brewed potions she uses to treat her patients.

With South African health services buckling under the weight of Aids, witchdoctors like Ms Bathobele are doing a brisk trade. For many, they are the only source of hope in coping with a disease that has swamped conventional medical services.

Each day patients arrive at Ms Bathobele's hut in the hills above the seaside town of Knysna, bringing a few dollars in payment, a chicken, or anything they can trade for treatment. Many who come for her help are dying from Aids.

'People come to me because they have nowhere else to go,' she says as she deftly grinds a large root into a pulp. 'Very sick patients need me for food and a bed. Their families do not want them and many nights I have dying people sleeping on the floor of my house.'

Now, she will get help in caring for her community as she joins the ranks of thousands of traditional healers being trained by the South African government to help manage the overwhelming Aids crisis.

The government's Aids Directorate, a unit within the health department, has employed two full-time witchdoctors. Their job is to teach healers such as Ms Bathobele to recognise the symptoms of Aids, and send patients to medical doctors for treatment.