Is a combined Western and traditional health service for black patients desirable?

With the growing interest in traditional forms of healing has come pressure to provide a combined Western and traditional health service for patients of non-Western cultures. The present study investigated attitudes of Black South African psychiatric patients to their choice of healer and trends in their usage of isangoma (indigenous healers). It emerged that the patients favoured a two-phase treatment plan in which they consult a Western doctor while in hospital and then consult a traditional healer at their home.