If the State Health and Family Welfare Department has its way, practitioners of Indian systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) will soon be legally allowed to practise allopathy “during emergencies” in rural areas of Karnataka.
Having failed repeatedly in attracting adequate number of MBBS graduates for its primary health centres (PHCs), the department has already started recruiting AYUSH practitioners to fill nearly 320 vacancies of general duty medical officers (GDMOs) in PHCs.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Health and Family Welfare Minister K.R. Ramesh Kumar tabled the Karnataka Ayush Practitioners’ Registration and Medical Practitioners’ Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the ongoing legislature session in Belagavi. This Bill, when passed, will make registration compulsory for AYUSH doctors.
Crash course
A committee, headed by the State Drugs Controller, has also been set up by the Health Department to study the feasibility of allowing AYUSH doctors to practise allopathy. The committee, which met on November 11, has also been asked to study the possibility of providing a three-month training to the recruited AYUSH doctors by the State Institute of Health and Family Welfare in allopathy practice. The idea is to prepare them to treat communicable and non-communicable diseases in rural areas.
This move has, however, faced stiff opposition from the State unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Karnataka Medical Council (KMC). They fear it could “make way for quackery”.
IMA State president Rajashekar S. Bellary said by legally allowing cross practice, the State government would put the lives of poor patients in rural areas at risk. “We have expressed our opposition on several occasions and have also written to the department demanding that the move be dropped. No AYUSH practitioner with a three-month training can be as eligible as an MBBS doctor to treat patients with allopathy medicines. It is dangerous and risky,” the doctor said.
The KMC has submitted copies of a Supreme Court order and a circular issued by the State government in the past, making it clear that doctors should practise only those systems of medicines in which they are qualified and registered.
KMC member T.A. Veerabhadraiah said allowing cross practice would only result in increased number of medical negligence cases.
In 2013, when a similar attempt was made during the tenure of the former Health Minister, U.T. Khader, the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) set aside the proposal saying it is “technically difficult”. The Health Department had then written to RGUHS recommending the introduction of an 18-month training in integrated medicine. However, RGUHS authorities said the proposal could not be accepted unless it was approved by the Medical Council of India (MCI) and Boards governing the other systems of medicine.
‘Will curb quackery’
However, the Health Minister said the move is to ensure timely medical care by qualified professionals in all PHCs. “I do not want people to go to quacks and this can be possible only if we have doctors in all our PHCs. Are AYUSH practitioners not doctors? They also study a five-and-a-half-year course that is equivalent to MBBS. Further, they will be trained to prescribe allopathy medicines,” said Mr. Ramesh Kumar.
Demand for integrated practice
Several groups of doctors practising traditional systems have been lobbying with the government for long to allow them to prescribe allopathic drugs during emergencies. Separate proposals have been submitted to the government by the State units of the Ayush Federation of India, National Integrated Medical Association, and Ayurveda Horata Samiti in the recent past. According to these organisations, such a system exists in 13 States, including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
