New Delhi:
The IMA on Tuesday gave a call to all doctors practicing modern medicine to withdraw non-essential and non-Covid services on December 11 in protest against a Central Council of Indian Medicine notification which authorises post-graduate practitioners in specified streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform general surgical procedures.
Emergency services will function along with ICUs and CCUs but no elective surgical case will be posted, the doctors’ body said.
Stating that the notification by the Central Council of Indian Medicine to allow the legal practice of surgeries by Ayurveda practitioners and the formation of four committees by Niti Aayog for the integration of all systems of medicine will only lead to “mixopathy”, the IMA demanded an immediate withdrawal of both.
Meanwhile, the Union government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that Ayurveda, unani and homoeopathy practitioners can prescribe drugs for prevention of Covid-19 by boosting immunity but cannot claim that their medicines can cure such patients.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta informed a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, RS Reddy and MR Shah that Ayush practitioners have been provided with norms to prescribe drugs for boosting immunity or for symptomatic treatment of Covid-19 patients.
“While approving the medicines, the Ayush ministry had clarified that it could not be claimed that these medicines can cure Covid-19,” Mehta said.
The bench said all Ayush practitioners must adhere to the norms.