Magaya leads one of the country’s largest congregations at his Waterfalls church in Harare where the majority of worshippers would be seeking spiritual healing for various medical conditions including HIV and Aids.
“We have attended to many people who would have been diagnosed of various ailments but before we put them through our formal prayer lines, we always demand a medical history from the hospital and also after praying for them, we always refer them back to the medical doctor to be tested so that we can have a complete testimony,” Magaya said.
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| Don’t stop taking ARVs says Prophet W. Magaya. |
“But, I will never tell anyone to stop taking their medication until the doctor who prescribed the medication instructs them to stop taking them.”
He added: “I always say it is not me who gave you the medication in the first place, so I don’t have the right to tell you to stop taking the pills.”
Health and Child Care minister David Parirenyatwa, who was guest of honour at the function, hailed Magaya’s statement for demystifying spiritual healing.
“Us as doctors we know that we can give you drugs, we can do surgery on you, but sometimes there is that spiritual lack and that is what Magaya is good at,” Parirenyatwa said.
“So we help each other spiritually and physically so that we have a whole person, and that’s why we have prayers for patients.”
Magaya’s comments came amid reports that many people had stopped taking their medication after being assured of healing by prophets and traditional healers.
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| Don’t stop taking ARVs says Prophet W. Magaya. |
Magaya said he had always warned people on life-prolonging medication such as ARVs to continue taking their medication even after “being healed through prayer”, unless a qualified doctor had instructed them to do so.
