Members of Indian Medical Association (IMA) and those belonging to Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association (TNGDA) staged demonstrations in various parts of Tamil Nadu on Tuesday protesting against the Centre's policies in medical education, particularly permitting Ayurveda practitioners to perform surgeries.
The protest was also against the National Education Policy 2020, which IMA Tamil Nadu chapter president Dr C N Raja and Honorary Secretary Dr A K Ravikumar, in a joint statement alleged that spoke of medical pluralism and lateral entry laying the foundation for legitimising 'mixopathy.'
The IMA and TNGDA demanded the withdrawal of the notification which sought to incorporate the postgraduate courses namely MS Shalya Tantra and Shalakya Tantra (General Surgery).
"The modern medicine surgical procedures listed out under Shalya Tantra and Shalakya Tantra, fall under the ambit, authority and jurisdiction of modern medicine having been prescribed by the then Medical Council of India as the competencies ascribable to the postgraduate course titled MS (General Surgery)," statement said.
Also, anesthesiologists required for surgery were not yet available in Ayurvedic medicine, it said.
The November 20 Central Council of Indian Medicine's notification listing 39 general surgery procedures and around 19 procedures involving eye, ear, nose and throat by amending the Indian Medicine Central Council (Postgraduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016, has become a bone of contention for the IMA.
Apart from Chennai, demonstrations in which students also participated, were held in Madurai, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore, Krishnagiri among others
Published 08 December 2020, 14:53 IST