Crackdown on Ayurvedic Doctors

March 24, 2007

(Ayushveda.com) - Like any other form of medicine, Ayurveda is also rife with several quack doctors who are giving the medicinal therapy a bad name. It is these quacks who provide ‘medicines’ without any benefits, they could simply be powders of some random herbs taken to fool the general public. Most of these quacks operate in the local Indian marker in seedy corners where they entice people by claiming to sell ‘medicines’ for sexual ailments. However, some of them have also begun operating in places away from their local markets, and even in foreign shores.

The Indian government is not waking up to this practice, which is creating a blot on the holy name of Ayurvedic medicine. Lucknow, the capital of the North Indian city of Uttar Pradesh, is the hub of all such quack activities, where so-called Ayurvedic medicines are obtained at a dime a dozen. In a recent raid by the Health Department of Uttar Pradesh on these quack doctors, several malpractices were brought to the limelight.

Most of these doctors do hold degrees in Ayurvedic and Unani medicine, but they were found stocking and prescribing allopathic medicines to the gullible public. Allopathy is certainly faster-selling than Ayurveda; hence these doctors were trying to make a quick buck by playing on the peoples’ credulity.

However, the practitioners are holding their own against this crackdown. They are reminding the Health Department of an order issued by it decades ago, in which Ayurvedic practitioners were allowed to prescribe allopathic medicines in emergency situations. These practitioners are pointing out that Ayurveda cannot always be used as a method of treatment, so they need to supplement their prescriptions with allopathic medicines most of the time.

They are also claiming that they were made to undergo allopathic training for a period of six months in the local Balrampur College so that they could handle the vast cases of medical emergencies that happen in a city as crowded as Lucknow. They are insisting that since they have been made to study the practices of allopathy, they must be allowed to practice that form of medicine also, to an extent.

The Chief Medical Officer’s office is facing the brunt of the retaliation from the Ayurvedic practitioners. The so-called practitioners of Ayurveda are thronging this office to seek a solution to their problems. There have been demonstrations in front of the office. Medical officers are claiming that these Ayurvedic practitioners are disrupting the normal activities in the office in fear of some kind of legal remonstration against them.

The health authorities are very positive in their claim that the Ayurvedic doctors were found selling predominantly allopathic medicines and giving Ayurvedic medicines a total backseat. They were taking advantage of their short period of training in allopathy, which was only conducted as a sort of backup for emergencies.

However, the battle between the Ayurvedic doctors, who have already been branded as quacks, and the health authorities rages on without any mutual decision visible in the near future.