Ministry of AYUSH & AIIMS plan to set up Integrative Medicine Dept amid ayurveda row

Ministry of AYUSH and AIIMS have decided to initiate work on setting up a Department of Integrative Medicine at AIIMS. This decision was taken in a joint visit and review by AYUSH Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha and AIIMS New Delhi Director Dr Randeep Guleria. This decision comes when the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Tuesday staged a protest across the country against the government's notification which authorises post-graduate practitioners in specified streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform general surgical procedures. 

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Ministry of AYUSH & AIIMS to set up Integrative Medicine Department

During the joint visit, it was decided that centre for Integrative Medicine and Research (CIMR) AIIMS may develop an integrated protocol with Ayurveda and Yoga for study on Post COVID-19 treatments. AYUSH Secretary has also assured that the Ministry of AYUSH will strive to continue its support to CIMR till the dedicated Department is developed. 

Stating that the government's latest notification will ring the 'death knell' of the modern medical system as a whole, IMA doctors from both private and government sectors on Tuesday demonstrated on roads in all districts of the country. Apart from the doctors, the medical students also staged protests in their respective colleges.

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IMA threatens to intensify agitation 

Questioning the identity of Ayurveda, National President of IMA, Dr Rajan Sharma stated that the government's decision was a step towards advancing and legitimizing 'mixopathy', which the body saw as an 'encroachment' into the jurisdiction and competencies of modern medicine. 

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In fact, the purity and identity of Ayurveda stand equally challenged. That the council prescribed modern medicine textbooks and Ayurveda institutions practised surgery with the assistance of modern medical doctors cannot be reason enough to legitimize encroachment into the jurisdiction and competencies of modern medicine," he said.

The body also added that the protests will be intensified until steps towards implementing mixopathy are not abandoned. "IMA will be constrained to intensify the agitation until the steps towards implementing mixopathy are abandoned. IMA has appealed to all the sister professional speciality organisations, the organisations of medical college teachers, Government Doctors, Resident Doctors Associations apart from medical students and Hospitals Associations to support its cause to retain the separate identity and existence of modern medicine," said Dr RV Asokan, Honorary Secretary General of IMA.

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