Traditional bone setters and the rural health status in India

Traditional and alternative medicine play vital role in the health systems of many African and Asian countries.  The knowledge of manipulation and healing was well known since centuries. WHO notes that "inappropriate use of traditional medicines or practices can have negative or dangerous effects" Bone setting is the traditional practice of joint manipulation. It is believed that Dalai Lama had Mongolian bone setters in his team of personal physicians. Bone setting is one of the key specialties of local health traditions in ruralIndia which may be due to the fact that the current government and private institutional facilities are neither adequate nor suitable to cope with the patient load particularly in rural areas and hence the people depend on locally available facilities. For the modern medical management, the cost of diagnosing, medicine and surgery is quite high compared to that of bone setting through traditional methods. It is estimated that there are approximately 60,000 bonesetters in ruralIndia. As a pilot study, Foundation for revitalization of local health traditions (FRLHT) has conducted a survey revealed that there are more than 403 bonesetters 25 districts of Tamilnadu (TN),India. Though there are such very few exceptional happening (like the training of TN’s bonesetters by FRLHT), a clear protocol to analyze the issue and strengthen the rural health system is still a dream.

Local bone setters of Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts of TN were interviewed and steps to identify the critical deficiencies were discussed. The importance of proper clinical documentation of their practices was insisted and a sample case report form with all the necessary details was prepared. This paper aims at exploring the pros and cons of the traditional bone setting practices and strictly insists for their proper training.