Anyone who has the devil’s bene­diction of getting sick of diabetes and jaundice at the same time would surely blame an experienced witch for his or her palaver. Fact is, the combination is a dreaded one with the form and visage of an obituary.

The bio-chemical analysis of the unholy combination is, however, within arm’s reach. Diabetes doesn’t tolerate sugar and jaundice can’t get cured with­out glucose (sugar). The two diseases are therefore irreconcilable under any medical condition. They are just not of the same womb!

So the terrified patient has to choose between two styles of dying: either curing the diabetes or dying of jaundice or curing the jaundice and falling into a diabetic coma en route to a cold room transit. The next available plane is destined for the cemetery, meaning the world no longer has any business to do with you.

Now, forgetting about pathological combinations and narrowing the focus on diabetes, one can still crumble in fear. The reason is that diabetes as a disease is not a benevolent ailment. We can understand this because it has nev­er been philanthropic in any sense of the word. It demands its pound of flesh, and that is often worth a human life.

The problem is that, if you have too much sugar in your blood (hyperglyce­mia), you risk falling into coma. If your sugar level is also too low, a terrible coma awaits you. You just can’t un­derstand the malevolence associated with the disease so you have to keep a balance.

TREACHERY

I am writing this piece because of the sundry sinister attempts of treach­ery, overt and covert, being subtly perpetrated to kill Natural Therapy which claims a cure for diabetes. The claim is completely at variance with the assertion of orthodox practitioners who believe that diabetes can only be man­aged, but can never be cured.

Basically, diabetes occurs when the pancreas is not producing enough insulin to cope with blood sugar, or is not producing insulin at all. The result is a debilitating disease with several compli­cations that can lead to death.

To combat the disease, one has to be put on diaonil or daily insulin injections supposedly to manage the disease, not to cure it because according to medical gurus, it cannot be cured.

Natural therapists have a different and more progresso-radical view. They say diabetes can be cured and they are proving it every day of the week. Happi­ly, medical doctors who develop diabe­tes are now coming for natural therapy, albeit under the cover of darkness. Today, there are many living testimonies of a natural therapy cure for the deadly ailment.

I was really sad about a silly attempt to frustrate the efforts of a well-known Texas-trained naturopathic physician who has toned down the orthodox medi­cal chorus that diabetes is not cur-able. Many of his patients who had been on insulin for years before seeing him are off it.

The medical crusade is a veritable one, and the good news is being propa­gated by those who have seen the light. Dr Kwesi Ofei-Agyemang’s success story is one that needs to be told from the roof-tops. But ask me, how is he being frustrated?

On October 28, 1996, a diabetic patient of Dr Ofei-Agyemang had her sugar level checked. It was 6.1 mmo1/1. After treatment using naturopathic methods, she became well and was asked to check her sugar level again at a laboratory (name withheld) on 6-11- 96. Surprisingly, the lab recorded 13.3 mmol/l; meaning that her situation had worsened by far.

When she brought the report, Dr Ofei-Agyemang was sceptical about it. The patient was supposed to have recovered, or at least was recovering. The level could, therefore, not be 13.3. He rushed to the laboratory to demand an explanation.

When Dr Ofei-Agymang queried the report, the technician said he was sorry and added that he’d investigate the error.

Meanwhile at another laboratory where he sent the patient for another test to cross-check the earlier result, the patient’s sugar level recorded a low 2.9 mmo1/1, a correct reflection of her improved state of health.

The doctor was furious for a very good reason. If he had taken the earlier lab report seriously and continued treat­ment to further reduce the patient’s sugar level, the patient would have sunk into coma and possibly died.

“This is not the first time this is happening,” Dr Ofei-Agyemang told me in an interview last week Friday. When I send my patients for tests, some lab technicians deliberately don’t return the correct results just because they know the patient is attending a natural therapy clinic.

“I see it as a subtle attempt to kill naturopathy in this country aside other hidden strategies that are being adopted to sabotage it. They are all out to create a wrong impression in the minds of pa­tients that they are going to the wrong place for treatment when in fact they are at the right place.”

Other attempts include doctors warning their patients never to submit themselves to natural therapy whenever the patients suggest they want to try it, knowing well that orthodox medicine isn’t helping them.

Look at something else like this one. After Dr Ofei-Agyemang had cured one patient of a disease and placed him on a diet of fruits and vegetables, the patient’s brother (a doctor) advised him to quit the natural diet regimen and to eat plenty of meat and all that has to do with balanced diet.

So the patient quit the natural diet and ate meat to his fill. Before long boils broke out all over his body. Apparently, the body was rejecting the unnatural diet which had become toxic to the body following the spell of natural dieting.

FAILURE

I have been thinking about this diabetic cure controversy for some time now. I was compelled to ask the natural therapist to explain how naturopathy could possibly tread where orthodox medicine has woefully failed as far as a cure to diabetes was concerned.

He explained that a defective pan­creas only needs to be revived through selective manipulation, diet and urine therapy to make it function again. If de­fects in other organs of the body can be corrected, there should be no medical reason why the pancreas should be an exception, he said.

“What other doctors must know is that once our methods are different, our results will naturally be different,” he said. “What they are supposed to be saying in fact is that ‘according to orthodox medicine, there is no cure for diabetes.’ They should stop saying there is no cure for diabetes because we are curing it. If they doubt it they should come here and see things for them­selves.

“Our methods are natural and include colon irrigation, deep tissue massage which is more effective than physiotherapy, diet, some fast and manipulation, and urine therapy. There is no way any disease can survive a combination of these methods.

Cancerous sores and all kinds of chronic ailments have been cured, dia­betes inclusive.

“We just rejuvenate the dormant pancreas and it starts producing insulin. Unless the pancreas is cut out through surgery as a result of cancer, we have ways of making it work.”

I spoke to one of his patients, Jamison Ocansey. He was sick of diabe­tes and has been on herbs of all kinds, insulin and dioanil for more than a year. His sugar level fluctuated between 9 to 17 mmo1/c. After treatment, his sugar level is between 5.0 and 5.9 mmol/c.

“People don’t like this method because of the urine that is included in the method of cure,” he said.”I used to feel the same way but as I’m now cured, I’ve an entirely different opinion. Let me also thank your paper Weekly Spectator. It was an article in it that made me come here, so keep spreading the message.

“I used to be very weak and couldn’t walk. Look, now I am as strong as a bull. I eat well and I’m happy.”

The doctor has cured various types of diseases at his clinic which is 100 metres north of Holy Gardens or Lido, Circle, Accra. What I believe would help us all is that the medical authorities should investigate these cures and come out openly to claim or disclaim them.

Those who are off insulin would also give testimony. That way, natural therapy can become more acceptable and there would be no point in anybody trying to frustrate efforts at entrench­ing it as the better substitute that has no side effects. It should in fact be the ideal complement to orthodox medicine and not an adversary as people want to portray it.

This article was first publish on Satur­day, November 16, 1996

Merari Alomele’s

‘

The problem is that, if you have too much sugar in your blood (hyperglycemia), you risk falling into coma. If your sugar level is also too low, a terrible coma awaits you. You just can’t un­derstand the malevolence associated with the disease so you have to keep a balance.

Isn’t it beautiful when people live together in love and unity? I guess many people will agree to this when they hear about a unique collaboration, unity, and love be­tween two distinct groups.

Dear readers, allow me to write about something that is quite different from what I have usually been writing about with a focus on Ghanaian/African migrants or groups and their accomplishments in Finland.

Today, I write about a unique way of collaboration between the Lutheran and the Catholic Church in Finland.

For almost four years now, the Africa Catholic Chaplaincy in Fin­land (ACCF) has used the Lutheran Church premises in Kallio, a suburb of Helsinki, Finland’s capital city.

Catholics using a Lutheran church premises

I found and still find it heart-warming that the Lutheran body would give their premises to members of the Catholic Church to use.

Indeed, using the Lutheran church became necessary when the African Chaplaincy grew in number and their original place at the St. Mary’s Church was too small.

On November 13, 2022, an im­portant milestone in ecumenism was achieved when a Thanksgiving Holy Mass was celebrated by the African Catholic Chaplaincy in Fin­land (ACCF) at the Kallio (Lutheran) Church in Helsinki.

The main celebrant in that unique joint church service was Monsignor Emeritus, Teemu Sippo S. C. I., the Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Helsinki. Among the dignitaries were leaders of the Kallio (Lutheran) Church and the Finnish Ecumenical Council, and the Catholic Church in Finland.

No wonder that in announcing the mass service, the Catholic Church expressed appreciation this way: “In thanksgiving to the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of Helsinki and especially the Kallio parish for the great ecumenical hospitality and cooperation in allowing the Afri­can Catholic Chaplaincy in Finland to celebrate Sunday Masses in the Kallio church”.

A gesture worthy of emulation, unity in diversity

What touched me about the whole idea and experience was not merely the coming together of faithful Catholic, Lutheran and oth­er worshippers, but also the por­trayal of love, unity, and harmony.

This, to me is a gesture worthy of emulation. The Lutheran Church should be com­mended for al­lowing the African Catholic Chap­laincy, which has been growing, to use the Lutheran Church in Kallio for their Sunday mass services.

The show of appreciation by the African Cath­olic Chaplaincy to the Kallio (Lutheran) Church for allowing them to conduct their mass services every Sunday in the Kallio Church is also commendable.

That mass service in November 2022 was indeed a well-attended religious occasion with unforgetta­ble experience. It showcased unity among brethren and emphasised the importance of promoting unity despite their diversity backgrounds.

There was an impressive display of diverse cultures from different parts of Africa and elsewhere. The event was spiced by a rich cultur­al display of dances and colourful attires which were a delight to watch.

For example, members of the Ghanaian Catholic community wore their gay and colourful kente attire and led the procession into the church with their rhythmic adowa dance and music. Other commu­nities such as the Cameroonian, Nigerian, Kenyan and Tanzanian as well as South Sudanese groups also put up well-choreographed perfor­mances.

The African Catholic Chaplaincy in Finland

The African Chaplaincy was founded on June 4, 2017, which was a Pentecost Sunday, in a Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Monsignor Emeritus Sippo S.C.I., the then Bishop of Helsinki, at the St. Mary’s Catholic Parish Church in Helsinki.

The Chaplaincy was created by Bishop Sippo to fulfil the desire of the Diocese to give African immi­grants in Finland the possibility to be at ease and freely worship in their everyday lives in Finland. The Catholic Church in Finland has about 15,000 registered Catholics, half of whom are native Finns. The rest of the Faithful come from at least 100 different countries from all five Continents in the world.

In all, there are eight parishes in Finland, with two in the capital city, Helsinki (St Mary’s and St. Henry’s). There are also dozens of priests working in Finland.

The formation of the Chaplaincy in 2017 was as a result of collab­oration by then Bishop Sippo with the Diocesan body when they de­tected a great flocking of African immigrants to Finland, the ma­jority of whom were Catholics, in order to give them a possibility to integrate into the Finnish society by worshipping as Catholics and in their African cultural identity.

By Perpetual Crentsil

Email: perpetualcrentsil@yahoo.com