City doctor suggests use of hypnosis as anaesthesia

Some major and minor surgeries could be performed on a patient by sending him or her into a sub-conscious state by giving appropriate suggestions in a proper way through hypnosis, claims a city doctor.

This method would eliminate the complications associated with administration of anaesthesia and has no side effects, physician Sreehari said. Complications due to anaesthesia cannot be identified beforehand and hence sending a patient into a sub-conscious state would eliminate complications like anaphylitic reaction (reaction to a specific drug), sudden death, renal failure, respirator arrest, hypertension, etc.

Caesarean, hysterectomy, dental pain, removal of localised tumours, etc. could be performed this way but when to induce the patient into a sub-conscious state has to be planned.

“The effect has to be continued post-operative period till the patient is ready to be woken up,” Dr. Sreehari said at a press conference on Saturday.

“This method is some 100 years old and has established itself well in the US, while in India it is not being practised much though in 2003 the Union Ministry of Health permitted a patient to be taken into a sub-conscious state,” he said.

Publicity drive

To give publicity to this method of anaesthesia, Dr. Sreehari inducted 250 students of Presidency Degree College here into sub-conscious state on September 2, for about 20 minutes and entered the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of most persons anesthetised at a time.

‘The method has established itself well in the U.S.’