AIIMS Bhubaneswar signs MoU to set up integrative medicine department

BHUBANESWAR: AIIMS Bhubaneswar has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH) to set up a department of integrative medicine at the hospital, official sources said on Wednesday.
The move will help integrate homoeopathy into the existing healthcare system, which, in turn, will reduce the over usage of modern medicines and drugs in the tertiary healthcare facilities.
“The MoU will provide the scope to explore and establish the scientific evidence of homoeopathy. Through this agreement, the two national institutes will have the scope of collaborative research for therapeutic response of medicine in homoeopathy and protocol of treatment,” AIIMS Bhubaneswar executive director, Ashutosh Biswas, said.
Besides conducting research, the department will also treat patients. Researchers of both the institutes will share their domain knowledge on a particular topic related to integrative medicine, a CCRH official said.
“Homoeopathy has a wide potential as an integrative system and the outcome of this MoU will certainly boost the healthcare system and benefit the masses,” CCRH’s director general Subhash Kaushik said. Experts, who attended the MoU signing programme on Tuesday, said that popularity and the cost effectiveness of homoeopathy make it a sustainable system for integration into the modern healthcare system.
Integrating homoeopathy in healthcare will help to achieve the universal health coverage as advocated by the World Health Organization, the experts added.
“During the pandemic, homoeopathy proved to be a precedent of adjunctive care to standard therapy and integrative homoeopathic care has provided varied successful integration and outcomes for Covid-19, dengue, acute encephalitis syndrome, post-Covid illness among others,” Kaushik added.