The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has strongly condemned the move by the Central Government of Indian Medicine (CCIM), allowing post-graduate scholars of Ayurveda to formally practice general surgery, including ortho and dentistry. The government has given permission for Masters degree holders in Ayurvedic treatment to perform surgery after taking specialised training in ENT, bone, eyes and teeth treatment.
The IMA stated that it saw this move as a retrograde step of mixing the systems which, it said, will be resisted at all costs. “All over India, students and practitioners of modern medicine are agitated over this violation of mutual identity and respect,” the IMA said.
It also urged the CCIM to develop its own surgical disciplines from its own ancient texts and not claim the surgical disciplines of modern medicine as its own. The Indian Medical Association has been openly opposing such policy moves by the Centre, especially the plan to mix modern medicine with the traditional systems of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), in coming years, as envisaged by the Centre.
The development has come after the Central Council of Indian Medicine amended Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016, to include the aforementioned regulation to allow the PG students of Ayurveda for practicing the general surgery.
Following this, the Centre in its gazette notification allowed Ayurvedic PG passouts to receive formal training for such procedures. The training modules for surgical procedures will be added to the curriculum of Ayurvedic studies.
“The Central Council of Indian Medicine, with the previous sanction of the Central Government, hereby makes the following regulations further to amend the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016,” the gazette notification read. The act has been renamed Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Amendment Regulations, 2020.
The notification informed that the students will be trained in two streams of surgery and would be awarded titles of MS (Ayurved) Shalya Tantra (General Surgery and MS (Ayurved) Shalakya Tantra (Disease of Eye, Ear, Nose, Throat, Head and Oro-Dentistry).
The latest move by the Centre is an addition to the host of decisions taken amid pandemic which shows an impending paradigm shift in healthcare from modern medicine to the traditional form.
