IMA’s opposition against Ayush doctors is hypocrisy, says CCIM Chairman: Report

Last week, the Centre allowed post-graduate Ayurveda doctors to perform a variety of surgeries. Following which, the Ayush Ministry was accused of mixing up modern medicine with ancient Indian Ayurvedic system.

Also read: Centre allows Ayurveda doctors to perform 'variety of medical procedures', including surgeries

The Chairman of the regulatory body for Ayurveda, the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), Vaidya Jayant Deopujari, in an interview with The Times of India has said that there is nothing new about Ayurvedic doctors doing surgeries. He also attacked the Indian healthcare system for not giving Ayush doctors their due credit.

“The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) wrote to allopathic hospitals that they will not recognise Ayush doctors. We welcome this. But the fact remains that 95 per cent ICUs are manned by Ayush practitioners.

It is the allopathy doctors who teach them everything about how to manage the ICY, insert central line, give IV etc. Why do they do it? For them to make money. Then these doctors go and sit in the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and object to Ayush doctors being used. It is just hypocrisy,” Deopujari told the publication.

The IMA on November 24 demanded withdrawal of the notification authorising post-graduate Ayurveda practitioners to be trained to perform general surgical procedures, saying the move was a "khichadification", or a confused mix, of medical education and practice.

Also read: Retrograde step: IMA on Centre allowing post-grad Ayurveda doctors to perform surgery

The November 20 notification by the CCIM, a statutory body under the Ayush Ministry to regulate the Indian systems of medicine, listed 39 general surgery procedures and around 19 procedures involving the eye, ear, nose and throat, by amending the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016.

CCIM's Jayant Deopujari added that changing the prefix of AYUSH doctors working in allopathic hospitals would make no difference.

"There is a great demand for Ayurvedic practitioners and it is increasing. Some things are decided by society, When engineering colleges became too many they went empty. Neither government nor any university could do anything about it. Society decided that they want to put their children only in reputed institutes. The government decided that they cannot let Ayush treat Covid-19..."

While the Ayush Ministry issued a clarification claiming that the technical terms and modern developments are a common heritage of mankind, the IMA rejected their clarification as being "deceptive camouflage of mixing the systems of medicine".

(With agency inputs)