IMA doctors protests against 'mixopathy'; demand rollback of AYUSH 'surgery' notification

Amid the ongoing row between Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Centre over AYUSH ministry's recent notification, IMA doctors across India staged a protest on Friday. In Guwahati, IMA Assam chief said that the Centre was 'mixing modern medicine with traditional', terming it an 'experiment on people'. Terming it 'mixopathy', the doctors pointed out that Ayurvedic doctors with just 3 years of training have now been allowed to perform surgery which requires 8-10 years. Protests were witnessed in Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow etc.

Ministry of AYUSH & AIIMS plan to set up Integrative Medicine Dept amid ayurveda row

IMA protests 'mixopathy'

Govt allows post-grad Ayurveda docs to train in performing surgeries; IMA terms it 'retrograde step'

What is the Ayurveda row?

The row began when Centre issued a notification authorising post-graduate practitioners in specified streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform surgical procedures such as excisions of benign tumours, nasal and cataract surgeries. The November 20 gazette notification by the Central Council of Indian Medicine (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. Centre has stated that the practice was already in force and it was only notified this year.

AYUSH Ministry Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha said, "This notification is more of the nature of a clarification. It streamlines the existing regulation relating to postgraduate education in Ayurveda with respect to the specified procedures. Further, the notification does not open up the entire field of surgery to Ayurveda practitioners and specifies a set of surgical procedures. It outlines that not all post-graduates of Ayurveda can perform these procedures. Only those specialised in Shalya and Shalakya are allowed to perform these surgical procedures".

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the largest body of modern medicine doctors, has condemned the move, describing it as poaching the disciplines of modern medicine through back door means and a retrograde step of mixing the systems. Demanding that the order be withdrawn, the IMA urged the CCIM to develop their own surgical disciplines from their own ancient texts and not claim the surgical disciplines of modern medicine as their own. Now, the Ministry of AYUSH and AIIMS have decided to initiate work on setting up a Department of Integrative Medicine at AIIMS.

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