BERHAMPUR: Non-Covid and non-emergency medical services across the state will be affected for two hours on Tuesday and Friday due to a protest call given by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
The IMA is protesting against the Centre’s permission to ayurveda practitioners to perform surgeries. “The IMA has been demanding the withdrawal of the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM)’s notification permitting postgraduate practitioners of a specific stream of ayurveda to be trained to perform general surgeries,” said the IMA’s state branch president, Kamala Kant Panigrahy.
Panigrahy said other medical associations, including the Odisha Medical Services Association (OMSA) and the Odisha Medical Teachers Association (OMTA), have extended support to the IMA’s strike call.
According to the decision, small groups of around 20 participants will hold two-hour demonstrations between noon and 2 pm in public places on Tuesday, following Covid-19 protocol. Similarly, non-Covid and non-essential services would be boycotted between 6 am and 6 pm on Friday, he added.
“For surgery, you need anaesthesia and antibiotics. Does ayurveda have them? If ayurveda develops its own anaesthesia and antibiotics, I am fine with it. If people choose to get operated on by an ayurveda practitioner, that is fine but you cannot accord legal status to what we call ‘mixopathy’,” Panigrahy said.
Ayurveda practitioners, however, welcomed the Centre’s decision. “Surgery is a part of ayurveda. It is called shalya. This is part of the ayurveda curriculum and is taught across the country. After teaching surgery to students, it is not fair to say the ayurveda doctors cannot practise it,” said Sagar Ranjan Tripathy, an ayurveda practitioner here.
Satyabrat Mohapatra, a retired surgeon, said when ayurveda practitioners are taught surgery, patients must have a choice. “We should look at what is good for the patients as well as the country,” he added.