The African Health Centre

Rotterdamers are slowly awakening to a healthy presence in their city: A clinic dedicated to helping people:  Clean up their digestive systems

(from the large to the small intestine); pull out years of wax from their ears (often easing years of pressure in the head); clean up their kidney, liver and lymph; bring harmony, happiness, peace, improved memory, greater sensory perception, heightened awareness, increased love, greater fertility, increased energy, diminished friction and turmoil in their lives; as well as  force into their consciousness the fact that the debilitating upshot of aging is not as natural as people think.

According to the owner and senior therapist (Cameroonian-born Mrs Esther Hensen-Gwanmesia), a state of youthful health is everyone?s birthright, and reversing the unhealthy signs of aging is a right that we must utilise - a process that begins from inside and which is simpler and more enjoyable than many people realise.

TAB?s correspondent recently visited the African Health Centre in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), and chatted with its owner - Therapist Mrs. Esther Hensen-Gwanmesia.

The African Bulletin: Thank you for putting aside some time for us. I would like to start with the name of this clinic: ?African Health Centre?. It gives the impression that you practice exclusively African methods of treatment here. Is that the case?

African Health Centre): No. Our clinic utilises healing methods from all over the world; but does something more. We use African healing modules such as African massage, African stress release techniques, potent African healing herb-treatments, and African meditation techniques amongst others. Additionally, we work with specialist African Phyto therapists from around the world. It is this unique aspect of our clinic that informs its name, for the concept of an African clinic or a holistic clinic that offers African healing treatments (in combination with other techniques) is uncommon.

*Esther Hensen Gwanmesia

TAB: This is interesting information for me, for I am attracted to anything that spells good health. Yet I am not alone in this. There are many people who want good health and are looking for ways to live quality lives. What you offer in this clinic? Is it restricted to persons suffering ill-health?

AHC: We work with everyone who is interested in a healthy life, whether they find themselves burdened by some medical condition or whether they just want to improve their lives. Our primary aim is to enhance people?s quality of life. In fact we not only strive to help people from what we know, but take time to research different types of holistic healing for our patients. For instance, if someone presents us with a condition that is beyond our understanding, we investigate it and possible routes to healing and ultimate good health.

TAB: What kind of treatments do you offer?

AHC: Body Electronics; Iridology; Colon Irrigation; Ear Candling; Liver cleanse; Kidney cleanse;  Lymph cleanse; Hot-stone massage; Aqua-detox, Ascension tools, Magnetic therapy, Different meditation modules; Neck and shoulder massage; and a list of others. We also offer holistic African herbal portions that target certain conditions and also make extensive use of kinesiology techniques

We offer Free Information and Lectures either arranged by us or individuals & groups interested in bringing the information to others.

TAB: To even consider opening such a holistic clinic demands expert knowledge. Can you tell us what your credentials are?

AHC: I have worked in the medical field for almost 50 years. I started as a nurse and midwife working in Cameroon, later in East Africa and finally in the Netherlands; then I went on to study body-electronics; Huna shamanic healing, colon therapy, ear candling, African shamanism, and different disciplines from Reiki to meditation therapy. These disciplines carried me through Australia, England, the United States, Ghana and Togo. I have instructed students in The Netherlands, Tanzania, and Ghana - and one of my students now has a former African Head of State on her list of patient-clients - using our method of training.

TAB: Does this mean you also train people?

AHC: Yes. Training others is particularly important to me, as it means the knowledge will go on. I have begun putting together a training module for Europe - starting here in The Netherlands, which will encompass everything I know. Students who have studied under my tutelage have generally received their certificates both from my offices and abroad - for instance, the colon certificate come from England (from the veteran English Colon expert Dr Milo Sewert).

I will give further details for the training programme I just mentioned after we finish this interview. Courses are going to begin in September of 2007, with an open day in August 2007. All of that I will explain later and information will be available online at our website on www.africanhealthcentre.com

*Ear Candling

TAB: Can you elaborate more on what those different methods of treatments you mentioned entail?

AHC: Yes indeed.  Body Electronics is a revolutionary healing method developed by an American medical and holistic doctor - John Witman Ray. It targets both the tangible and intangible causes of illnesses through what we call point holdings. Clients take supplements and follow a healthy regime and once they are on the point-holding table, they undergo experiences that often relate straight to the condition they wish to address. Iridology or eye-reading is the science of reading conditions in the body through the eyes. Your state of health is seen through indications in the eye and the best means of correcting any unhealthy condition pinpointed. Colon Irrigation - which at one time was identified with the late Princess Diana and several Hollywood Stars (with a variation of it flashed on telly by Patty Bard) is a method of completely cleaning the digestive system of all the backlog of dirt. The digestive system is the body?s main waste-evacuation route. Here also, absorption of nutrients happens. When wrong foods are eaten (as people do day in and day out), the effect slows up evacuation and a backlog of old material results in the digestive track. The body begins to poison itself with that backlog. Imagine leaving organic food out of the fridge, or sun, or fire. It begins to rot. Something of that ilk happens with that backlog in the body. This, unknown to many people, is often the reason for many problems from constipation to migraine to other types of seemingly unrelated conditions. In fact take a dirty house, clean it, it feels better, leave it dirty and keep dirtying it for years, and the result needs no accounting. That is what happens to the body.  Ear Candling is so unique many people have never heard of it. It is cleaning the inner ears of wax that has accumulated for years, often causing sinus problem, parasites build-up, and other things. Liver cleanse; Kidney cleanse; Lymph cleanse are all methods that the patient is instructed to do at home. The first two programs take about seven days each, while the lymph cleanse is often an ongoing process, depending on the client?s state of healthy or needs. Aqua detox is a footbath which pulls dirt and toxins from the system through the feet?s acupuncture points. In plain sight, the patient sees dirt seeping out of his/her body. Ascension tools are cosmically created and charged devices produced to bring about harmony, improved memory, greater happiness and peace, greater sensory perception, heightened awareness, increased love, greater fertility, increased energy, diminish friction and turmoil etc. Hot-stone massage involves massaging with specific lava stones (mainly of Bassalt) or precise stones from special rivers and volcanic mountains to improve blood circulation and oxygen, release stress. Then there are our different African therapies which like the different meditation modules; Neck and shoulder massage? are self explanatory.

TAB: At the beginning of our conversation you said you do researches. Are all of these methods of keeping healthy derived from your training or have you come upon information of some of them through research?

AHC: Both. I first discovered some of the methods through research and then went on to study them in depth. However, our method of lymph cleanse is the result of research, as well as the rather revolutionary anti-aging process I am now suggesting to clients.

*Digestive System Chart

However, what I have mostly researched on, barring patient requests has been works on rejuvenation, as that is really what health is all about? keeping the cells healthy and the body strong and youthful. I have never believed that aging and breaking down is a natural state. I see break-down engendered by years as a state that needs curing ? not by cosmetic means, but naturally. Now let me give some facts about aging. According to research (see literature on life sciences), the body reproduces more than 300 billion cells everyday. From birth to age 30 those new cells grow more resistant to disease and more robust than the cells they replace. From age 30, the body begins a transformation. The production of new cells becomes less efficient and the cell quality gradually deteriorates until about age 45 ? at which point the deterioration process begins to accelerate.  This scenario seems to be what to expect. But modern science, according to expert research, shows now that only 35% of aging is genetic. The other 65% is in our hands. That means, we can turn aging around; and that is what I have begun discovering through the processes we use and the product information we have come upon? products that actually target the debilitating effects of aging. It is all very cutting edge and very interesting, and I am now pursuing these with clients who are interested. So this is what research is helping us do.

TAB: Are we then to expect more ideas and concepts of healing from you, through your research? 

AHC: Absolutely. We will keep researching, keep looking for new things. And if we find something new in rejuvenation, or cleansing, or whatever, we will pursue it. It is the nature of my work? My philosophy is: Keep searching, keep discovering, and keep making known the unknown.

TAB: I am wondering about something as I sit listening to this information. In the Netherlands you are expected to present insurance information for medical treatments. What are your patients/clients expected to bring with them when they visit the clinic?

AHC:  Nothing. All we ask of our clients is that they fill a form about their medical history, so we have an idea of their background. For those with an insurance, of course they can approach their insurance and see if they can recover their fees, though we have taken care to bring our consultation fees down so as to help every one, rich, poor, black, white, foreigner, native. This is a work of love and love chooses not.

TAB: Can clients use your treatment alongside other treatments, for instance doctor's prescription?

AHC: Absolutely. We do not replace people's doctors. We do not ask people to stop medical treatments. Often, when people finish our programmes, we advise them to go again and do a check up and see the result before and after their visit at the clinic.

TAB: For those who are interested, what are your fees and how can you be reached?

AHC: You can reach us by telephone or the internet. In fact we have an e-mail service where people can consult twelve times a year for a subscription fee of 60 euro. (That is just 5 euro per consultation, and your questions not only gets answered by e-mail, we offer you specialised research services into conditions that we have no direct answer for as well as treatment options available across the world - including how or where possible to get these treatments. Visit www.africanhealthcentre.com  or call for more information on setting up an account. People within the email program do have the advantage of a 20% discount on their first physical consultation at the clinic) Consultation at the clinic is 25 euro for the first time and any later consultation is only 15 euro. We are, if not the most inexpensive, amongst the most inexpensive health outfits in Europe. Our aim is to be accessible to every single person. We have a booklet of other prices and offers. I am not sure if we have space here to list those. But people can e-mail or call us at (the Netherlands): 010 415 2113 or 06 185 180 85 / 06 460 05975. Email: admin@africanhealthcentre.com  or africanhealthcentre@yahoo.com or just send us a query online from our website www.africanhealthcentre.com.

As for physically getting to the clinic, all you need to do is - from the Rotterdam Central Station - take either tram 21 direction Woudhoek or tram 23 direction Holy and get off at the Mathenesserbrug - just after the bridge (Mathenesserbrug). Our clinic directly faces the tram stop. The address is Mathenesserdijk 245, 3027 BM Rotterdam. We only admit by appointment, so calling or e-mailing for appointment is a must.

TAB: I will be visiting you myself. Thank you very much for your time.

AHC: I should be thanking you and the TAB family.