The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) and the State government are at loggerheads over allowing nearly 450 homoeopathy practitioners who hold the Licentiate of the Court of Examiners of Homoeopathy (LCEH) degree to register with the MMC.
The Bombay High Court has stayed a notification issued by the State to this effect. MMC members feel it is an attempt to open doors to ‘crosspathy’ — where a homoeopath can practice allopathy.
Integrated degree
The LCEH was an integrated degree course started by the government in 1951 in two colleges in Mumbai and Pune. The course was discontinued in 1982. At present, 800-odd doctors are said to have this degree, of which a little more than half may be practising the profession. Most of these doctors are in their late 50s. As it was an integrated course, the students were taught homoeopathy and allopathy.
In September, the government issued a notification saying that LCEH degree holders should be registered with the MMC, a quasi judicial body that gives registrations to modern medicine practitioners. The notification has not gone down well with modern medicine practitioners.
“The government’s notification is baseless, and it is dangerous to patients’ life and health,” said Parthiv Sanghvi, State secretary of the Indian Medical Association. Dr. Sanghvi said LCEH doctors have the degree to practise only homoeopathy.
Dr Rajesh Rao, chairman of the LCEH Doctors Association, however, said they have been practising basic allopathy for all these years. “We are not specialised modern medicine doctors. But we do practise like an MBBS doctor would as a general or family physician. Our only contention has been to register us with the MMC. We have been fighting for this for 20 years,” he said.
Staying updated
An MMC member, on condition of anonymity, said that drugs have changed over the years and allopathy has evolved tremendously. “Even a modern medicine practitioner has to be constantly updated with continuous medical education (CME) programmes. How does the State expect homoeopathy practitioners to cope with this change? Is it willing to risk the lives of people by putting them at the mercy of untrained doctors?” he asked.
Homoeopathy practitioner Bahubali Shah, a former president of the Maharashtra Council of Homoeopathy, said that once LCEH degree holders get MMC registrations, they can follow all the required procedures and attend as many CMEs as required to stay updated.
