Quincy Wellness & Naturopathic Centre has just been launched in Ikoyi, Lagos. The latest arm of the popular herbal solution outfit, Quincy Herbal Nigeria, is an integrative health and wellness centre offering solution for a variety of health and wellness issues. Mrs. Toby Ayodele-Keeney, the managing director of the clinic, in an interview with the Editor, FOLORUNSHO HAMSAT, dissects the quality of the clinic which provides holistic quality primary care for all with an emphasis on the treatment of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, infertility, high blood pressure, as well as their signature weight loss and a variety of lifestyle related ailments.
How would you describe in general the uniqueness of Quincy Herbal services?
At Quincy we are result-oriented. We realize that we need our patients to have positive result. We want them to be healthy. There are limitations to Western medicines. Covid-19 has even made it very clear to us that there are major limitations to Western medicines. However, in herbal medicine, the limitation is not in the medicine itself, rather it is in the use; the dosage and quantity. That is where the limitations are, not necessarily in the medicine. Though, when you combine both herbal and Western medicines, you reduce the limitations of the Western medicines and you reduce the limitations of the applications of the herbal medicines and you get a healthier patient and healthier result, with fewer side effects. So, Quincy is all about natural solution to all kinds of illnesses.
Tell us about Quincy’s services and the patient’s experiences
Over the years, we found that we’ve been treating obesity related illnesses, diabetes, high cholesterol, infertility and all kinds of chronic ailments, even cancer, depression and anxiety. If someone comes to us about losing weight, we are not just treating weight loss for fashion sake but to ensure that people are healthy. When you talk about being healthy, what is associated with your weight loss? Diabetes, cholesterol or relationship problems even marital issues. What we do is to treat the sources that come with it like obesity, heart problems, diabetes, cancer, infertility, fibroid and every other thing that comes with it. Usually, as you are treating, say, the obesity, you’re treating the real problem. There was this conversation I had with a woman who said she took canned fruit and lose a lot of weight. But it is not just about drying up and moving around like I said earlier. Canned fruit is not fresh fruits anyway. It is more about total health. Even women who come to us for infertility issues, we treat them and they get pregnant. Each time we tell a patient to go to the lab for test. Of course, it is herbal medicine but not herbal magic. We can’t see what you have in your blood, so you can’t come to us and we diagnose you just like that. And no one else should. That’s the reason we always send people for lab test. Even when you’re obese we send you for lab test, especially with the rising incidence of stroke, heart attack and stuff like that.
What is the treatment procedure like?
I will give an example of how our average patient is taken care of. Average patients come in, they are overweight. We run some tests. We do consultation to have the patient’s full history. Is the patient’s mother or father fat? Who is still alive among them and who has died? We do review from head to toe. That is done by our in-house Awareness Consultant or other medical doctors. That depends on the patient’s condition. based on that, we have a series of baseline tests that we run to make sure that the patient doesn’t have high cholesterol, kidney problem, any risk of diabetes and other health challenges. Everything is done here at Quincy. We have discovered that many middle-aged women and men have a huge risk of having diabetes due to belly fat. For many men, belly fat can be difficult to lose, but we have the key treating that at Quincy Wellness Centre. Now, after running those tests we find out that the reason for the patient’s condition. Some people are not eating much food. Majority of our patients do not eat much. Some have hormonal imbalance or due to old age or slow metabolism. All these we would see in the lab test result. Based on the acuteness of the problem, we decide if the patient needs immediate treatment. If there is need for immediate treatment, then that is where Western medicine comes in.
Why does the herbal medicine have to come last?
The reason is that, herbal medicine cannot do drip; it cannot do antibiotics and few other things. If the patient’s condition is acute, let’s say the patient’s blood sugar is severely high and there must be an immediate attention, we can give the person Western medicine. Once he or she is stabilized, then we move to traditional medicine and nutritional medicine to stabilize the patient. Based on the acuteness of other related issues, we decide to give the patient diabetic medication. From diabetic medication we move to traditional medicine. At Quincy, traditional medicine is our own main medicine. Western medicine is the alternative medicine. It means that, if healthy living fails and eating healthy fails, if taking herbs that God has planted on Earth for us to use as food fails, then we use Western medicine. It should be seen that way not that Western medicine must come first, which does nothing but treating symptoms. When all fails we now turn to herbs.
But that has been the practice for a long time…
Yes, that is what Africans have been doing for a long time, and it’s failing us. Of all races in the world, black people are the ones at the highest risk of dying young, highest risk of dying of diabetes, highest risk of having high blood pressure. Any lifestyle illnesses that you can think of, black people are number one on that list. And it is not because of any other thing but because we are doing the wrong thing. The white people are eating their own and taking their own medicine and it is working for them. The black people are eating the white people food and taking our own medicine and it is not working for us. A white man would not just say he wants to eat eba. He would not just say he wants to eat egusi. They eat only their food and it is okay with the state of their organs. In the old age, it is beer that the white people drink as water and their liver could handle it. But we black people will leave our own food for the white people’s food. We will leave palm wine for beer. And if we must drink beer, there is ginger beer. We have local tubers that we blacks are meant to eat like roots and vegetables and fruits. But we eat the white people’s food. Of course, we would be sick. Naturally, if we take their medicine, it will not work for us. And when all hope has been lost we now remember there is herbal medicine. At that point, it may even be too late.
How would you compare the African lifestyle of today with what it used to be in the past?
That is why at Quincy we really believe in working on preventative health. This is what our ancestors did. Our ancestor didn’t wait until they fell sick before they took herbs. They took herbs like their daily food. How many times do old people take rice, bread, spaghetti, beverages and all those stuff? These things are not even food. They are considered food just because they taste good. At the risk of sounding political, our food choices in Africa are controlled by government. It is like we are in bondage because the mentality is that our own thing are not valued by us but the ones from abroad. Before the white people brought their things to us, how were our ancestors living? Of course, they were living fine, they lived up to 140, 150 years of age. The white people’s foods and drugs are developed for them, for their system to handle. But the black are borrowing lifestyle from them.
Do white people use herbal medicines?
Yes, they do. They buy from us and say it is good. We are the ones that abandoned our own. At Quincy Wellness and Naturopathic Centre, we do integrative medicine. The World Health Organization has said it many years ago that we should integrate; African traditional medicine should be integrated into the healthcare system of Africa. A lot of other countries that are proactive have gathered themselves for that purpose. They are doing it. Lagos State is actually doing a good job. They have passed a law that our traditional medicine should be integrated. At Quincy we have the two licenses and I don’t think there is any other clinic that have them both (laughs). So, traditionally we are covered and medically we are covered.
Tell us about services at the newly-opened Quincy Wellness & Naturopathic Centre
At Quincy Wellness & Naturopathic Centre, we have a wide range of services, in line with Covid-19 protocols especially. It is the normal general clinical services. You have headache, malaria, typhoid and stuff like that, we treat them. We also treat chronic diseases where Western medicines cannot work or cure them. That is fully traditional. We have also been treating Covid-like symptoms. People come to us with the symptoms because they don’t want to go to the isolation centre. They won’t even tell us that they have Covid. But from my experience, there are some core signs that are associated with Covid. So when we check those signs and we find our that they are positive, we treat those symptoms and the patient gets well. And we realize that using Western drugs alone does not work. People die almost everyday due to Covid. Using herbs do work but the patient may take a long time to heal. However, when you combine both the Western drugs and the herbs together, in a systematic method, you will get better result. It works like magic.
What are other services that you offer?
We are focused on natural weight management, preventative health, nutrition medicine and stress management. We offer a fully kitted state-of-the-art laboratory to cater to the needs of peoples in getting quick and reliable results of a wide variety of tests with instant interpretations and medical recommendations. Additionally, we offer our healing spa which delivers therapeutic spa services for facials, chronic pain, trigger point therapy, fertility massage and more. We also provide aesthetic services for microblading of brows, lashes and IV nutrition and skincare therapy. We also treat diabetes, hypertension, prostrate health, hormonal imbalance, metabolic syndrome, autoimmune disease, cancer including cancer prevention, erectile dysfunction, low Libido, fibroids, inflammation treatment and IV Vitamins and Antioxidants Therapy. Also for the wellness, we do anti-Inflammatory massage, relaxation massage, post surgery massage, hot stone massage, myofascial release, facial stretch therapy, natural pain management and many other lifestyle related ailments.
What we’re trying to do at Quincy is producing African medicine for Africans. Yes, the world is a global village, definitely one has to add other people’s things together but it doesn’t mean you should take away the identity of what you’re doing. We can use English to write our medicine’s names, we can make them into capsules, we can do laboratory stuff, and mind you, there’s a reason for modern technology. It is to make things better.
