The Ethics of Collaboration Perspectives of Batswana Health Seekers on Health Systems Collaboration

Abstract

Studies on the importance of the collaboration between medical healthcare professionals with other players from alternative healthcare systems are on the increase across the world. Most of the studies place the patients at the benefiting end of this collaboration. Notwithstanding the amount of research that underscores the significance of this collaboration, on the ground the nature of this collaboration continues to be riddled with challenges and there are pockets of uncharted areas that still need to be explored. For example, research on collaboration of healthcare systems in young and developing countries like Botswana is still far  from being adequate. Further, this collaboration still needs to be investigated from perspectives of other players like the health seekers, religious leaders and community leaders. This paper specifically explores perspectives of health seekers in Botswana on the collaboration of medical and religious healthcare systems. The findings from the study carried out among the Batswana health seekers seem to support the view that the collaboration between modern medical system, represented by medical practitioners and religious healthcare systems should be complementary in nature.