West Bengal doctors’ body opposes move to permit surgery by Ayurveda students
A leading doctors’ body in West
Bengal has strongly opposed the Centre’s decision to train practitioners of
alternative medicine to perform surgical procedures, saying such ‘crosspathy’
or ‘mixopathy’ was anti-people and anti-science.
Last week, the Central Council of
Indian Medicine issued a notification allowing post-graduate scholars of the
Shalya and Shalakya streams of Ayurveda to independently perform 58 kinds of
surgeries including those related to the eye and the ears, nose and throat. The
Council subsequently issued a ‘clarification’ saying these surgeries were being
performed by Ayurveda professionals “since beginning” and that all scientific
advances including standardised terminologies were inheritances of entire
mankind and no group could claim monopoly over these.
“We don’t have any disregard for
other streams of medicine; in fact, we have great respect for ancient medicine.
But just as how I am not competent to prescribe Ayurvedic medicines, can an
Ayurveda practitioner perform surgeries?” asked Dr. Koushik Chaki, a founding
member of the West Bengal Doctors’ Forum. The Forum plans to write to the Prime
Minister and the Health Minister against what it calls a “regressive step”.
“For surgery you need anaesthesia
and antibiotics. Does Ayurveda have them? If Ayurveda develops its own
anaesthesia and antibiotics, I am fine with it; if people choose to get operated
upon by an Ayurveda practitioner, I am fine with that too. But you cannot
accord legal status to what we call crosspathy or mixopathy. It is anti-people
and anti-science,” Dr. Chaki told The Hindu.
Medicine, he said, was an
evolving field and treatments changed with time and that mixing several
branches of therapy like modern medicine, homeopathy and AYUSH may have a
detrimental effect on health.
“We should welcome new studied
and tested methods rather than being regressive. Once upon a time you used pigeons
to carry mail. Today, when you have email, would it make sense to go back to
pigeons?” he asked.
The Forum has asked doctors’ bodies across the country to “unitedly fight and resist the anti-people, anti-science and antigenic dictum.” It has already initiated an online campaign, asking people to say “no to crosspathy” and ‘no to bridge course”.
The Hindu, 23-11-2020
