IMA Chandigarh protests over Centre allowing AYUSH doctors to perform surgery

Instead of putting a ban on illegal practice of allopathy by AYUSH doctors, the government is legalising quackery, the association stated on Tuesday.

A protest demonstration was held by the Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) Chandigarh chapter at the IMA House here on Tuesday demanding the withdrawal of the central government’s decision to allow post-graduate practitioners in specific streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform general surgeries.

IMA members during their protest in Chandigarh on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

“It is fraught with danger as the decision aims at mixing the modern medicine studies with Ayurveda and other AYUSH disciplines which will greatly jeopardise the scientific and proven form of healthcare delivery worldwide. We demand rollback of such orders,” said Dr Ramneek Bedi, IMA coordination committee chairman.

The association in a release said, “It is strange that allopathic MBBS doctors are not allowed to do an ultrasound. A gynae surgery cannot be done by another discipline’s surgeon. Ayurveda doctors have been allowed to do surgery, though there is no provision of giving anaesthesia in Ayurveda. It amounts to endangering the lives of gullible people, especially from rural areas. Instead of putting a ban on illegal practice of allopathy by AYUSH doctors, the government is legalising quackery.”