Doctors in public and private sector hospitals in the State kept away from outpatient services on Friday, joining a nationwide medical bandh called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) against the Centre’s move to permit Ayurveda doctors to perform surgeries.
Emergency services and COVID-19-related services were exempted from the strike, doctors’ organisations said.
Sit-in protest
The IMA Thiruvananthapuram chapter organised a protest sit-in in front of Raj Bhavan from 11.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Hospitals across the State witnessed a shutdown from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., except for emergency and COVID-19 services, IMA Thiruvananthapuram branch president Prasanth C.V. and Siby Kurian Philip said.
Doctors in the government medical colleges also joined the stir by boycotting the OP from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday. Emergency services, labour room, inpatient care, emergency surgeries and ICU care were exempted from the strike, Binoy S., State president, Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association (KGMCTA), and State secretary Nirmal Bhaskar said in a statement.
Doctors’ demand
The doctors’ organisations have demanded that the Centre urgently scrap the notification issued by the Central Council of Indian Medicine permitting PG Ayurveda students to practise surgical procedures on completion of formal training. The move will serve only to endanger public health, the organisations said.
Attempts to integrate different systems of medicine into a single system as a cheap alternative in health care will come with unacceptable levels of human suffering and cost millions of lives, the IMA said in a statement. The notification should be seen as an attempt to wipe out modern medicine from India by 2030, the IMA alleged.
The move to permit Ayurveda doctors to perform surgeries will destroy not just the foundation of modern medicine, but that of AYUSH systems as well, the KGMCTA said.
The Raj Bhavan dharna was inaugurated by IMA State president P.T. Zacharias.
