Twenty Karnataka doctors per batch go on relay 24 hour hunger strike every day till Feb 14

Twenty doctors per batch will go on a relay hunger strike at the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Karnataka State branch in Chamrajpet from February 1 to 14 for 24 hours from 10 am to 10 am before another batch of doctors takes over.

During these two weeks, the doctors who mostly practice in private hospitals across the state will only have water. There are 161 IMA branches across the state.

This is in solidarity with a similar hunger strike at the IMA headquarters in Delhi. The Association has condemned the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), which regulates the medical study and practice of Ayurveda. In a gazette notification, dated November 20, the CCIM has amended the Indian Medicine Central Council Regulations, 2016, to introduce formal training and practice of surgeries to PG students of Ayurveda.

As per the amendment, the students would receive training in 'shalya' (general surgery) and 'shalakya' (diseases of ear, nose, throat, eye, head, oro-dentistry) specialisations. They will be given MS in Shalya. Such trained doctors of these two specialities would conduct 58 types of surgeries.

Paediatrician Dr SM Prasad, State Secretary, IMA, told DH, "Only youngsters who are fit to go on a hunger strike are sitting in. Members of Indian Academy of Paediatrics, Karnataka, IMA Ballari, Udupi, Karkala, Hospete, and Gangavathi, are taking part in the first batch. They're mostly from private hospitals and are not having food. They will be having water though. We want the CCIM notification to be taken back. There is no anaesthesia and microbiology in Indian System of Medicine."

IMA Karnataka State branch president Dr M Venkatachalapathy and State Secretary Dr SM Prasad will sit in the hunger strike on February 14.

"If there are abscess and sepsis, how will they treat the patient? The patient won't even know who he was operated upon. An allopathic doctor or an Ayurvedic doctor with MS in Shalya. There are no antibiotics in Ayurveda. They have to depend on emergency medical equipment in the ICU of modern medicine," he said. He is a professor of paediatrics in BR Ambedkar Medical College.