No proceedings can be initiated against such registered practitioners: court
No proceedings can be initiated against registered practitioners of Siddha, Ayurveda, Homoeopathy and Unani, who are also eligible to practice modern scientific medicine, including surgery, gynaecology, obstetrics, anaesthesiology, ENT and ophthalmology, the Madras High Court has said.
This is in the light of a circular issued by the police, the court said.
Passing orders on a contempt petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Siddha Medical Graduates Association (TNSMGA), Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla said if any action had been taken against the medical practitioners, it should be dropped forthwith, pending further orders in a writ petition. The TNSMGA prayed the court to punish Director-General of Police Letika Saran for her wilful and wanton disobedience of a High Court order of April 2006.
Interim injunction
The order had granted interim injunction restraining the DGP from interfering with the professional practice of those members of the association who held a valid registration certificate issued by the Tamil Nadu Siddha Medical Council till such time such registration continued to be valid to practise as Siddha Medical Practitioners as prescribed under the Indian Medicine Central Council Act.
Subsequent to the order, the government's Principal Secretary, in his communication to the DGP dated June 15 this year, had made it clear that institutionally qualified practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, who were registered with the Tamil Nadu Board of Indian Medicine, were eligible to practice the respective system with Allopathy based on the training and teaching they had during the course. They could not exclusively practice Allopathy.
A further direction had also been issued in the communication.
Petitioners' counsel S. Prabakaran brought to the court's notice the arrest of members of the TNSMGA between January 9 last year and June 12 this year in violation of the court's order.
The Special Government Pleader placed before the court a circular memo issued by the police dated June 19 this year.
Closing the contempt petition, Mr. Justice Ibrahim Kalifulla said in the light of the circular, it was imperative that no proceedings could be initiated against any of those registered practitioners of Siddha, Ayurveda, Homoeopathy and Unani.
Such registration of the practitioners should be with the Tamil Nadu Siddha Medical Council, Tamil Nadu Board of Indian Medicine and Tamil Nadu Homoeopathy Medical Council as well as those qualified doctors recognised by Madurai Kamaraj University and Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University who had been qualified respectively in the system of Bachelor of Siddha Medicine and Surgery.
We must wellcome this Judgmen.....!
It is obvious that Modern Medicine doctors and even the laws whcih governs them very offen claims that Obstetrics belongs to their system of medecine denying the very fact that this is God gifted. If suppose one thinks that their claim is true then no body would have born in this world prior to the invention of Modern Medicine. In rural and remote areas even the old and experienced ladies conduct the delivery but the qualified doctors of Indian Systems of Medicine are not allowed to conduct such a mundane thing inspite of being trained and thought.
Regarding prescribing Modern Medicine no doctor of modern medicine is aware of the procedure, research and development of Modern medicine in the laboratory, research institute or a pharmaceutical company it the medical representative who visits the clinical / medical establishments and imparts the knowledge of the new drugs and inventions to the doctors and it is the same with doctors of Indian Medicine also. Inspite of the facts offen resorts are made to degrade the image of the doctors of Indian medicne by calling them as quacks denying the facts that the curriculam of these systmes are very comprehensive which consists of both Modern scientfic / Allopathic system as well as their respective systems and made to treat the rural ailing population of India .
The syllabus of these Indian systems of medicine are made to the definition of Rule 2 (ee)(iii) of Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
CCIM Act, 1970 being subsequent Act to the IMC Act, 1956 is more comprehensive and the law making authority keeping in view the supplementation of modern medicine advances with Indian Syatems of Medicine enacted Sec. 17 (3)(b)to protect the rights and privilages of Indian Medicine doctors.
where were those qualified doctors when someone is bitten by some poiosonous snake or insects in our remote villages, where these qualified allopaths go when there is an life threatening emergency in a remote area, its only our traditional practise of first aid that help those victims to survive till they reach any hospital. medical science cannot be owned by anyone or any association, its within everyone's basic rights, your generation wouldn't have existed if your traditional medicine was not there. so what if these people have learned to cheat death with some artificial interference, they cannot become god and take the control to decide this which is wrong or right. the medical education or learning is just gone through some changes and new innovations and advancements but its still a medical science which has its base in the traditional medicine.
my aim was just to say that everyone in medical profession has only one aim that is to treat and heal a patient and provide health for all in the society, what if different roads are taken to reach the same goal.
All medical sciences has only one origin and all are any kind of interference to heal the patient. all medical practioners of all stream should learn how to respect each other and to serve the people in an integrated way, many diseases has no answers in allopathy at the same time it is well treated in some traditional medicine, why they cant integrate and provide a good medical service to the public?
why the government cant take some action to make it necessary to all medical practioners to learn all kind of medical science both traditional and modern medicine and provide & produce more medical graduates to serve more people in rural areas too?
If this integration is done its my personal opinion that the medical budget of our country can be reduced to 30%. which will be a huge sum addition to our country's wealth.
every common man like me has lot to say but dont know how to express, I thank The Hindu for giving a space for people like us to express our innerselves.
I am a unani doctor working in NCR in Delhi. The area where I work is slum. The population of that area is app.80000, most of them are poor. There is no MBBS doctor available there. Only some ayurved and unani doctors are working there. If this kind of situation is in the NCR what about the rural area? So respect and welcome the judgement; it will help those doctors who really serve the poor.
Integrating alternative system with allopathy is essential in terms of the need of the hour. We have more people with less number of registered medical practitioners. So our Govt should include an integrated medical system in our educational curriculum and develop an entirely new INDIAN MEDICAL CONCEPT with one objective of helping the patients. There is no harm in integrating different specialities to find out one ultimate cure for the human ailments.
The Hon'ble High Court should have appointed an Expert Committee as amicus curiae to deliberate the decision before passing an Order.
From Pharmacology point of view, all Drugs are have ADRs. It might seem simple for anybody to ask what harm is there in a Siddha or Ayurveda/Unani/Homeopath Physician in prescribing Modern Scientific Medicine (Allopathy is a wrong term used to describe Scientific Modern Medicine), it is because most drugs can cause immense ADRs. Pharmacovigilance data proves that even OTC drugs in many cases of Drug Interactions, can prove Fatal.
An Expert Committee comprising of Pharmacologists, Rational Therapeutics Experts and Evidence Based Medicine Practitioners can put together an White paper with directions and clear rules for Alternative Therapy Physicians on which drugs they can prescribe and which they shouldn't.
As concerns specialised medical fields such as Anaesthesia, it is extremely fatalistic and dangerous for an Ayurveda/Unani/Homeopath Physician to use ANY of Modern Medicines since a minute variation in dosage and administration technique can result in mortality.
I welcome the order, certainly not any qualified doctor from other system of medicine will be keen to practice some other system as a part of their professional ethics and passion. Hwever there is nothing wrong to make use of the modern medicine or any other alternate medicine for an emergency by a qualified practitioner, since all of them study four and half years full time and one year internship, with a basic awareness/ treatment practices of other systems as well. Therefore I welcome this order and appeal to government to make an holistic integrated approach for better health care to our country.
I welcome this and I request to form an integrated medical course at UG level to know the basics of individual medical system & later they can do their specialisation. Our country is in need of doctors. Govt.should please consider this because a disease free community will improve the country's economy.
Qualified docs should take efforts to excel in their field. When the whole world is running behind alternate systems realising their benefits, what makes them run for authorisation to practice allopathy?
India Needs Doctors in Rural areas and ISM Doctors are the one who venture to live and treat rural flocks. ISM Graduates are the one who are contributing a lot in NRHM by manning Rural PHC, where as MBBS Doctors avoid remote posting. This ruling of the Madras High Court deserves praise and will help poor to get some help with out fear, However, police should act against quacks and unqualified persons posing as Doctors in Rural ares and doing lot of harm to health system.
We welcome this court order from Kanyakumari District Siddha Medical Practitioners Association.
The Institutionally qualified Siddha Practitioners are protected under Central Council of Indian Medicine Act 1970 and Tamilnadu Siddha Medical Practitioners Act 1997.
CCIM 1970 Act give the privilege to practice the respective system supplemented with modern Scientific Medicine and its branches as per the teaching and training. The syllabus and curriculum also framed by CCIM.
Tamilnadu Siddha Medical practitioners Act also permits to deal the Qualified Siddha Practitioners with Siddha and Modern Medicine.
The Tamilnadu Siddha Medical Practitioners Act also give the legal protection to the said practitioners in the section 30.
I am amused by the interest shown by practitioners of Indian / Alternative Medicine to get the freedom to practice Modern / Allopathy medicine. I am certain that the MBBS graduate without specialisation in Anaesthesia or Surgery does not carry out practice in those areas without a specialist's supervision. To permit persons not trained in the system to practice such special and critical areas of medical practice should arouse concern in the consumers mind. Even if it is presribing medicines I do not know whether any one of those courses - Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, Homeopathy or Naturopathy & Yoga have any exposure to pharmacotherapy in Allopathy.
I understand the 'Idea' comes from an ambiguous statement in the Central Council of Indian Medicine Act 1970 (the right to practice any system of medicine). If one tries to understand the purpose of the statement it is easy to understand that it can not mean Modern / Allopathy Medicine for this act does not cover Modern meddicine. The Medical Council Act Of India alone is dealing with the right to practice Modern Medicine and it clearly states that only persons registered with Medical Council of India are eligible to practice Modern Medicine in India. There is not even an iota of doubt to stretch interpretation. No one can deny the utility of practice of Indian Systems of Medicine ( The inclusion of Homeopathy and Unani as Indian is interesting) and can not oppose the inclusion of these in health delivery system. But the present trend is not favouring that. On the other hand it encourages these Indian System Medical Practitioners to Practice Modern Medicine and leave their speciality unattractive and unattended !
I Welcome this because this is complimentry to all qualified Indian Sysytem of Medical Doctors. It could be eradicate fake and unqualified doctors.
This kind of freedom for prescribing any system medicines (even though in case of emergencies) is not going to be a benefit for the suffering humanity. This will definitely spoil the honor of each individual system of medicine. Each system of medicine / practitioner should be genuine to what they can do with their system of medicine alone, If it exceeds the limit then there is no harm in referring the patient to the concerned physicians of other system of medicine who can manage with such cases.
I welcome this step , if you go deep into the history of the medicine the father of medicine HIPPOCATRIES has practiced only four humoral theraphy which was also the basic for unani system untill 16 th century all the over the Europion countries were also practiced only unani system with there respective area names as natural medicine and Alternative medicine ,only after the invention has developed into modern medicine under the British rule it flourished in India .Reaserches have been done and most of the unani drugs has been used in modern medicine by seprating plants alkaloids giving it a modern scientific name and had been into British and indian pharmacopia ,even the surgical intruments where invented by hakims and veaids which has been advanced with modern inventions. when it come to research in unani medicine they are not in a position to do so as it has been already discovered and named as modern medicine . most of the traditional medicine schools like Ayerveda , siddha, or unani the syllabus contains traditional medicines syllabus with the modern syllabus .As this doctors are well in tackeling the diseases with both systems (Holistic approach) where ever necessary.I think the govt can utilise there services in Appointing such doctors in PHC for the development of Healthy nation.
this is a welcome step in the right direction. china , korea , japan are the only countries where traditional medicine is integrated in the country's health system. INDIA will be the 4 th to join this club.
traditional medecine produced and administired under regulated envirnment will enable job creation in indian medicine system and reduce cost to indian patients .
If qualified practitioners of Modern Medicine have been barred from using complementary and alternative medicines, the same ruling should apply to all the doctors to stick to what they are qualified in.
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