47% favour AYUSH doctors performing surgeries, says study

BENGALURU: A study has found that 47% of the people surveyed support allowing AYUSH doctors to conduct surgeries. The shortage of allopathic doctors in rural and Tier-III cities is cited as a reason for support to the move allowing AYUSH practitioners to also perform surgery.

“Of the 11,261 responses, 47% of citizens supported the government notification,” found the study by LocalCircles.

This comes even while the Indian Medical Association is seeking the withdrawal of the recent notification of the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) in this regard. IMA has taken a strong exception to what they’ve described as “mixology or mixopathy”.

As per the study, conducted across 303 districts in India, respondents said, “AYUSH doctors are anyway manning ICUs and General wards in many hospitals, especially in smaller towns and rural areas, and have learned such skills with hands-on experience.” The survey also asked the respondents if these doctors can be allowed to use antibiotics and anaesthesia.

To this, 35% of citizens said AYUSH doctors shouldn’t be allowed to perform surgeries in the first place, 27% said, “Let them use whatever they want to”, 20% said “Ayush-based”, 13% said “Allopathy-based”.
The citizens have made several suggestions, including seeking citizen consultation in permitting AYUSH doctors to perform these general and ENT surgeries but making it mandatory for them to fully disclose their qualifications to patients.

Meanwhile, some doctors from Bengaluru claim that shortage of trained government doctors in rural areas is a constant challenge. “There is a severe crunch of specialist doctors, including surgeons, with 81.8% positions lying vacant in government community health centres,” said a senior doctor when TNIE asked about the study results.

He said, “At the same time, hoping trained Ayurveda specialists could fill this gap might not work. A 2016 WHO report found that each category of healthcare worker – except traditional and faith healers – prefer to practise in urban areas, where only about 35% of India’s population lives.

So even if Ayurveda practitioners and IMA doctors reach a consensus, the problem of 65% of India’s residents being unable to access trained doctors would still exist.”