For traditional medicinal sector, Odisha is still a home gardens where they grow common herbal plants. There are several traditional healers across different spaces treating a variety of diseases and indigenous healing system. The traditional knowledge system has attracted considerable attention.
Traditional knowledge is based on wellness culture and preventive care. It cannot be defined scientifically because it is more practiced than studied theoretically and has been orally transformed from one generation to another. The focus of the healers is always on the patients and not the disease; thus they go beyond the treatment and connect with psycho-emotion of the patient.
The system is fast disappearing due to relatively low income, lack of written documents, deaths of the knowledge bearers, lack of initiative strategy to protect their knowledge, erosion of knowledge among the present generation.
Medicinal plant sector is highly unorganised where traditional healing is often seen as an unrecognised occupation. Large numbers of healers are poor. They offer their services for the sake of service to humanity and their treatment process is fully based on herbs and chants (mantras) without any commercial motive.
Majority of local healers and Ayurvedic practitioners reported lack of medicinal plants and declining interest of the younger generation in adopting the health system. Traditional healing in the study area is also gender specific with relatively low participation of women. Healers have also indicated the faith and emotion attached with the age-old culture bound belief.
Traditional medicinal sector should be promoted by the Government in the potential sites. In the light of growing tourism, peoples’ shifting preference is towards holistic healthcare system and wellbeing primarily associated with lifestyle diseases (cancer, diabetes, heart problem, blood pressure and stress) in the tourist destination.
Ayurvedic medicine and other local rural medicine along with other Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) are popular but restricted within few regions. They are also used as home remedies by the local people. Holistic healthcare and preventive care are now important aspect of being healthy. The focus is shifting from the illness to the wellness.
Thus to elevate health services, cross-sectoral and multi-level intervention should promote untapped rural medicine and the healthy Odisha strategies need to include sustainable production, consumption and marketing, adoption of yoga as a part of daily routine, alternative livelihood options like medical tourism on line of southern States and Himalayan region, scientific orientation to traditional healers, inter-disciplinary research with bio-physical and human geo-sciences etc.