God’s healing not limited to church, prayer camps — Christian Council

The Christian Council of Ghana has denounced the increasing rate at which some faith-based leaders blame the outbreak of diseases and other chronic diseases on spirituality and curses.

It said such practices made some people vulnerable in believing that they could only find answers to their conditions at prayer camps and shrines, instead of the hospital.

The General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rev. Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, expressed the concern  at a workshop for faith-based leaders and traditional leaders on the Ebola Virus Disease in Accra yesterday.

“Some people move from one prayer camp to another when they are struck by a disease and by the time they get to the hospital, it has reached the terminal stage and nothing can be done medically about it,” he said.

Ebola workshop

The workshop is the maiden edition of the one-month sensitisation programme being organised by the council in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to educate church leaders, traditional leaders, Muslim leaders and other spiritual leaders on the Ebola disease.

In collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund, the Christian Council of Ghana would next month educate students in about 198 schools across the country on Ebola.

Although Ghana has not recorded any case of Ebola since its outbreak in 2014, the WHO website indicates that more than 26,000 cases have been recorded in nine countries as of April 2015.

Out of the number, more than 10,000 deaths have been recorded in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, United States of America and United Kingdom.

While acknowledging that God heals, Rev. Opuni-Frimpong said God did not only heal in the church or at the prayer camps but also used medical professionals to heal the sick.

He recalled that at the initial stage of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, the Christian Council in that country preached that the disease was a curse on the nation and so many believed that it had more to do with spirituality than seeking for medical care.

Ignorance

Rev. Opuni-Frimpong said unknowingly, many of the faith-based leaders spread diseases through activities such as laying hands on people and handshaking in the church or the hospitals.

He, therefore, encouraged the participants to believe that God healed through the medical practitioners at the hospitals as well.  

On the training programme, the General Secretary explained that it was to provide faith-based leaders and traditional leaders who were influential in society with information on Ebola, to enable them to educate members of society on the disease.

The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Asare Bampoe, in his address, said the faith-based and traditional leaders were  a crucial sect that could carry education on the Ebola disease down to the grass roots.

On the issue of the preparation by the government, he said the fact that the disease had not come to Ghana gave it the opportunity to strengthen its healthcare systems.

The Health Promoter Officer at the Country Office of the WHO, Mrs Joana Ashong, said Ghana needed to be vigilant because new cases of Ebola were being recorded daily.

She said the public needed to be educated on the disease to prevent its outbreak in the country, hence the collaboration with the faith-based leaders.

She advised that all should keep up with the proper handwashing practice to prevent contracting infectious diseases.