IMA calls nationwide strike against decision to allow Ayurveda docs to perform surgery

The Indian Medical Association has stated that the government’s recent decision will “ring the death knell of modern medicine system as a whole.”
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The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has called for protests on December 8 and a nationwide strike on December 11 against the Union government’s decision to allow post-graduate practitioners in some specific streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform general surgeries. The IMA has called upon doctors to withdraw non-essential and non-COVID services from 6 am to 6 pm on December 11.

On December 11, the IMA has said that emergency services including casualty, labour rooms, emergency surgeries, in-patient services including ICUs, critical care, etc will function.  The IMA has also stated that public demonstrations will be held on December 8, between 12 pm and 2 pm, seeking that the government rescind its order. 

The IMA has stated that the government’s recent decision will “ring the death knell of modern medicine system as a whole.”

“The notification of the amendment to the CCIM Act on Post graduate Ayurveda surgery and the entitlement to study and practice independently have to be seen as another step in advancing and legitimising mixopathy. In fact, the purity and identity of Ayurveda stands equally challenged. That the council prescribed modern medicine text books and Ayurveda institutions practised surgery with the assistance of modern medical doctors cannot be reason enough to legitimise encroachment into the jurisdiction and competancies of modern medicine,” the IMA has said. 

The IMA has asked the medical fraternity, both government and private doctors, as well as medical college teachers and hospital associations to join the protests

IMA has sought the withdrawal of the order and dissolution of the NITI AAYOG committees for integration. “IMA appeals to the Government to consider the sensitivity of the medical fraternity and take appropriate steps. IMA will be constrained to intensify the agitation until the steps towards implementing mixopathy are abandoned,” the IMA said in a statement. 

The Indian Medical Association has been opposing policy moves by the Centre, especially the plan to mix modern medicine with the traditional systems of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), in coming years, as envisaged by the Centre. Dr Rajan Sharma, President, IMA had earlier stated that an integrative system of medicine would create a "khichdi medical system" and would produce hybrid doctors.

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