Protesting Ayush doctors seek equality with allopathy docs

Over 200 doctors from the Karnataka Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (Ayush) Medical Officers' Welfare Forum are protesting against the alleged discrimination between allopathy doctors and Ayush doctors.
The protestors, who have been camping at Freedom Park since Sunday morning, have put forward 22 demands, emphasising treatment on parity with allopathy doctors.
Renamed in 2003 from Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy, the department was established in order to encourage education, research and development and to popularise the use of the Ayush system. "Ayush system of medicines focus not only on the curative aspect, but also the general health and try to prevent a disease before it occurs," said Dr Sangamesh Thallevad, president of the welfare association. "Even though it is popular, especially among the rural population, affordable and is prepared locally using available resources, we are still discriminated against," he said.
The demands put forth by the association, emphasises equality between the two areas of medicine. "Where an allopathy doctor gets upto `32,000 as salary, an Ayush doctor of the same level does not even get half of that. We want to be treated the same as allopathy doctors and be given the same facilities as them, including salary and other facilities," he said.
Some of the demands include the creation of the post of Ayush medical officer in the department of health and family welfare, medico-legal rights to conduct post-mortems and issue medical certificates, making discrimination against doctors a punishable offence under the law, consideration of doctors to state awards and prizes, supply of quality products in pharmacies, recognise services done while on contract, when the doctor is made permanent and promotion of Ayush medicine and practice and the benefits of these at the taluk, district and state levels.

ADMA wants Dept of Ayush to standardise ayurvedic drug manufacturing processes

Suja Nair Shirodkar, Mumbai Thursday, August 04, 2011, 08:00 Hrs  [IST]

The Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturers' Association (ADMA) wants the Department of Ayush to take steps towards standardisation of various processes involved in manufacturing ayurvedic medicines including bhasma. ADMA in its suggestion to the government stated that it should set up a committee consisting of leading ayurvedic institutions, hospitals and research institutes along with leading industry members to address this matter. ADMA has already sent its representation to the department and is hopeful that in its next meeting with the Department of Ayush it will take some pro-active steps to initiate this process. According to Chandrakanth Bhanushali, general secretary, ADMA, “There is an immediate need to develop a standard protocol for the uniform manufacturing of Ayurvedic formulations. We want this committee to study this issue in detail and start standardisation of the processes at various locations. We are hopeful that Department of Ayush will help in the setting up of this committee by way of providing funds, and utilisation of the expertise of research councils.” ADMA in its representation has pointed out that standardisation of various manufacturing processes is very important for the analysis and the texture of the finished products so as to find the correct doses, safety and side effects of the formulations and duration of the treatment and mode of action. Bhanushali informed that today even if the manufacturers get API certified raw drugs, every company has their own process of manufacturing their product. He added, “Even though the authoritative books do inform about the process of manufacturing, it is not sufficient for practice as the narration is not detailed properly, which leads to individual interpretation resulting in variations in ASU products from batch to batch.” He said that adopting such steps will help ASU drug industry to expand its reach as the manufacturers will be able to get big market for their commercially developed products in the domestic as well as international markets