Despite the ambiguity surrounding herbal therapy clinics and the high cost of treatment, the number of patients they receive increases almost daily, especially with the collapse of the healthcare system in Libya.
Herbal medicine clinics, pushed by a popular belief in the magic of its medications extracted from herbs and unknown formulas, are not new; they started to spread when the Libyans lost trust in public hospitals and healthcare centers, which were ignored when medical staff went to private clinics in the 1990s.
Despite the ambiguity surrounding herbal therapy clinics and the high cost of treatment, the number of patients they receive increases almost daily, especially with the collapse of the healthcare system in Libya.
Herbal medicine clinics, pushed by a popular belief in the magic of its medications extracted from herbs and unknown formulas, are not new; they started to spread when the Libyans lost trust in public hospitals and healthcare centers, which were ignored when medical staff went to private clinics in the 1990s.
Thirty-six year-old Abdulsalam Haron resorted to herbal therapy three years ago, hoping that it could turn his dream of gaining some weight. He now lives with a diseased and bony body, as a result of consuming excessive amounts of cortisone, confirmed by medical analyses.
A cure for skinniness
Abdulsalam decided to visit an herbal medicine practitioner when he was urged by his family to find out why he was so thin, unable to fill-out his height of 180 cm.
“Alternative medicine was widely talked about as effective and consequently receiving an increasing number of patients in comparison to the misery and deterioration of treatment offered by public hospitals,” Abdulsalam said.
He attended a well-known clinic in downtown Tripoli where he waited with others in a long line. “There was a man wearing traditional doctor’s clothing in the room. I told him that I had no complaints, but I wanted to gain some weight,” Abdulsalam remembered. The practitioner wrote a prescription and Abdulsalam then bought it from the pharmacy attached to the clinic. “It was a little jar containing 30 green capsules similar to antibiotic capsules,” he remembered. “But with a nice smell.”
The little jar cost $48. Abdulsalam followed the practitioner’s prescribed dosage of two capsules per day, before meals. “My dream became true as my weight started to increase noticeably after only a few days after consuming the first two capsules. This prompted my mother and my cousin Muhammad to visit the same practitioner for the same illness,” Abdulsalam said.
Unknown medications
Their joy didn’t last long. Only a few days after consuming green capsules, a rash started to appear on the skin of both Abdulsalam’s mother and Muhammad, so the practitioner interrupted the treatment.
Abdulsalam however continued with the treatment until he became suddenly ill, and was consequently forced to visit many clinics and hospitals in Tripoli. The side effects of the medicine were exanthema—a rash on the face, chest and hands— accompanied by polyphagia—excessive hunger— drowsiness, and a breathing disorder and he was not able to stand on his feet.
Medical analyses conducted by Tripoli Medical Centre showed that he was exposed to cortisone dosages that caused him to suffer erosion of the joints, lusitropy— a relaxation of the heart muscles— and fluid collected around his lungs.
Having known the analyses results, Abdulsalam told the doctor who conducted them about his herbal therapy. The doctor asked him to bring the prescribed medicine to analyze it. The result of analyzing the green capsules in the “Medicine Surveillance Centre” (MSC) showed that they were extracted from the “ginseng” herb containing “cortisone” and imported from China by herb traders.
In order to verify analysis results, Abdulsalam travelled to Tunisia to have another medical examination, only to come back with several reports affirming the results. Abdulsalam then went to the practitioner and told him about the results. “The practitioner denied any relationship with me as well as the prescription he made himself. After severe debate and threats, those in charge of the clinic accepted to accompany me to Tunisia to verify the results,” Abdulsalam said.
The final results were striking since they proved that Abdulsalam needed surgery to transplant artificial joints at a cost of $305,00, but the clinic owner and his sons, as expected, refused to take the responsibility for Abdulsalam’s injury, which prompted him to take legal action.
“After a period of attending courts and despite the issuance of many writs to close the clinic, I was surprised that the clinic owners were declared innocent of the accusations two days before the breakout of the revolution,” Abdulsalam said. He lost his right to demand any compensation that might help him pay the expensive treatment costs.
Unlicensed clinics
Doubts regarding alternative medicine clinics are not only about the nature and formulas of the materials from which dozens of the medicines traded in the markets are extracted, but also their legal status, controlling measures, opening circumstances, and the trade of materials being labeled ‘medicine’.
Committing violations is also evidenced by the clinic employees’ refusal to answer journalists’ questions with different excuses. One clinic receptionist irresolutely said, while pointing to the shelves crowded with different medicines and cosmetics behind her, that some medicines were prepared within the clinic, while others were imported from China.
Director of Local Guard Force (LGF) in Tripoli, Brigadier Jamal Bennor, negates that these clinics have permits to practice any profession, stressing that the violations have spread as a result of the LGF’s limited activity due to a lack of capacity.
No government controls
The MSC director, Mohammad Glal, insists that the medicines imported by those clinics are not examined by MSC, since clinics owners usually begin their career as druggists to “turn with the expansion of their trade into owners of herbal therapy clinics.”
“All medicines currently entering the country, though legally, are neither controlled by a medicine surveillance body nor analyzed. Some of them however are imported as either aromatic substances or food,” Glal explained.
As an official feeling that the situation is out of his hands, Glal stressed the need to enact pharmacy controlling legislation to replace Law no. 106 of 1970, which is still in effect and was neither improved nor amended by the former regime.
Abdulsalam faces an unknown fate. He decided to break up with his fiancée, and is now receiving long term treatment. He has been able to practice his job temporarily; however, the joint transplanting surgery he needs cannot be performed due to its high costs of nearly half a million dollars.
