Hyderabad: In line with the Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) call for protest, doctors and postgraduate medical students in various government hospitals and colleges on Friday boycotted all outpatient duties and elective duties for twelve hours, from 6 am to 6 pm.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA), an apex body of allopathic doctors in India, has called for a nationwide strike on Friday to express its opposition to the government’s decision to allow Ayurvedic practitioners to perform medical surgeries. “We stood up for India, lost 700 doctors to Covid. Your turn now to save modern medicine from mixopathy,” a newspaper ad by the IMA said.
Private hospitals in the city too shut down non-essential services for twelve hours. Here’s how the medicos at the Basavatarakam Cancer Hospital protested this morning.
Why are the doctors protesting?
The Central Council of Indian Medicine on November 22 issued a Gazette Notification which authorized post-graduate practitioners of Ayurveda to receive formal training for general surgery, ENT, ophthalmology and dental procedures, which also includes complicated decisions of benign tumors, amputation of gangrene, among others.
The doctors have not only raised serious objections to it but also to the use of mixopathy because they believe that each and every variant of medicine is different and has its own identity and the amalgamation of various streams of medical science is a threat to human life and the health care system.
Ever since the notification has been issued, doctors have been staging demonstrations all over India against the Centre’s new notification and Mixopathy. The protests were intensified this week and shall be continued further.
“The decision made by the government would inadvertently affect the Indian healthcare system and concurrently quality of patient care immensely,” read a statement by the Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA).
“The usage of Indian traditional medicine gives better results in prevention and it does not extend to cure. If ayurvedic doctors are allowed to perform surgeries with those methods, it will create adverse effects on the human body and eventually burdens modern medical practitioners. The government must not risk public lives in such a way,” said Dr. Sanjeev Singh Yadav, Telangana Secretary of IMA. “Almost 98 per cent of the treatment is given by allopathic medicine only,” he said.
The IMA demanded the revocation of the gazette notification. “If the government does not heed our demands, our national body will take further drastic steps,” said Dr. Yadav.
