Dr Jack Githae: From a famous veterinarian to an African traditional medicine expert

Dr Jack Githae’s grandmother was a famous traditional herbalist in the early 1940s and people from Chorongi village in Nyeri town Constituency only referred to her as a 'doctor'.

But when she died in 1960, none of her family members took up the African traditional medicine practice.

In fact, Dr Githae went ahead to become a graduate at the Egerton University and the New Mexico State University where he had studied Animal Science.

He became Kenya’s livestock project manager under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and as he was working at the field, he encountered so many sick people at the grassroots.

“As I was interacting with the community between 1969 and 1978, I realised that there were many more sick people than the livestock I was treating. That is when I remembered that I had gained some experience in traditional medicine from my late grandmother,” Dr Githae says.

In 1983, he resolved to quit his job and fully commit himself to traditional medicine practice.

Due to the large number of patients flocking to his clinic at Kinangop, the herbalist opened up 16 more facilities countrywide where he fledged out his services.

During his practice, Dr Githae worked for four years with the World Health Organization (WHO) as the country representative in Traditional and Alternative Medicine.

“I operated my clinics until 2007 when the country experienced post-election violence (PEV). It was impossible to traverse the country and that is when I decided to confine myself to Nyeri and Nairobi where I still operate my traditional medical practice to date,” Dr Githae says during the interview held at his clinic in Ruring'u estate, Nyeri town.

The 80-year-old traditional healer, endowed with 41 years of experience, says that the continent has adequate herbal medicines required for human, livestock and food crops.

“These medicines have been used by our people for many years. but colonialism disrupted the traditional medical practice by stigmatizing it. We have all the materials required to boost this practice. All we need is that goodwill from our government and the community so that we can develop an appropriate structure where our people can access medicines that have enhanced human survival in Africa for many years,” he says.

He called on Kenyans to dig back to their indigenous knowledge and pass it over to the youths so that it can be entrenched to the next generation.

“The knowledge needs to be properly documented. Our herbal medical resource is precious but it has to be documented and protected. Efforts have been made by the government to boost traditional medicine practice, but there seems to be bigger external forces that don't want anything that jeopardizes the commercial interests of the West. They have commercial and political overtones which are very well protected,” the traditional medicine expert says.

“For a long time, efforts to develop African traditional medicine had been sabotaged. The crisis of alternative medicine is a global phenomenon where international drugs manufacturers are forces that influence people who matter,” he adds.

In 1993, he started the School of Traditional Medicine where he was offering diploma certificates and booked students to do the national examination council exams.

“Along the way, the training and research work at the institution was sabotaged. Our young students were incited that they would not be employable after completing their courses. Some students were radicalized and even attempted to burn down the institution. I had to discontinue the institution to secure the survival of my family,” he says.

He is appealing to the government to put in place measures to ensure that African traditional medicine flourish so that people have alternatives for incurable health conditions affecting them.

“There are conditions that do not have a cure in conventional medical delivery systems and that is why they come to us for treatment. It works,” the expert says.