Officials, public turn a blind eye to quacks

Coimbatore: Quacks seems to have a free run in the district with many people, who claim to be hereditary practitioners of ayurveda or siddha, wooing patients at public places, while the health department looks the other way.
These quacks often run their businesses right on main roadsides, where they park their vehicle, set up tents and announce through loudspeaker the health problems they treat. But it seems the public isn’t bothered about them. “We could take action against them only based on complaints,” said an officer.

On Sundapalayam Road, just before the Nambilaganpalayam bus stop, 9.9km from the joint director of medical services office, a man, who introduces himself as Thakur, has set up a three-room tent, with a board that reads “Gevandhani Buti Prchar Khandani Ayurvedic Camp”. Thakur says he is a hereditary ayurveda practitioner from Nagpur in Maharashtra. “We tour and set up camps in Tamil Nadu every year during the temple festival season. However, this is the first time we are visiting Coimbatore and our target is pilgrims visiting Palani and Perur.” He says he is a “parampariya” (hereditary) ayurveda practitioner. “I have not registered with any authority. We don’t have registrations for this in Maharashtra.”

The man has stored many plant parts, which he says are the herbs, in the tent. The board display says they could treat “respiration digitize”, “urinary malfunction heat”, “skin ejaculation”, “perfect” and “white stains”.

When TOI contacted him, Thakur explained “respiratory digitize” as lung problems, “urinary malfunction heat” as urine infections due to excess heat in the body, “skin ejaculation” as premature ejaculation, “white stains” as white discharge or different coloured semen and “perfect” as periods and issues with children’s genitalia. “We deal with all forms of infertility, breast milk problems, nursing problems and irregular monthly periods.” They charge Rs 20 for a “check up”, which includes checking your pulse.

Medicine costs depend on the medical issues they diagnose you with. “If it’s simple herbs, it will cost Rs 100 to Rs 200, but rare herbs will cost thousands,” he said. When asked whether he had obtained permission to set up the camp, he said he had a permit from the Vadavalli police station. “I know many big shots in Coimbatore and have a legal permission from police,” he said displaying a photo taken with a policeman.

However, Vadavalli police denied having given him any permission. “He sat outside our office for a month demanding permission, but we refused. We didn’t know that he had set up a clinic. He also showed us a photo with a police officer, but it is not our former inspector Ravi as he claims or any Vadavalli police station officer,” said the station sub inspector.

When contacted, the joint director of medical services, Dr Krishna, who is also incharge of cracking down on quacks, said she would have to inform the district siddha medical officer.