Ban on Non- Allopathic Doctors Practising Allopathy is Anti-Consumer Open Forum.
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1996 May / Jun Vol V No 3.
Uma Prabhu.
Editors Note-Last year in this section we had debated a good deal on this subject. As a continuation we put this.
Two thirds of the countrys population-especially those residing in tribal and hilly blocks depend on non allopathic doctors, argue several practitioners of Ayurveda, Homoeopathy and Unani forms of medicines.
Moreover these doctors also service many important national health programmes like universal immunization and family welfare, some consumer activists observe.
The recent supreme court judgement prohibiting non allopathic doctors from practising allopathy is therefore anti-consumer, they point out. The Association for Consumers Action on Safety and Health (ACASH), President Arun Bal says-"It will throw the countrys health care system totally out of gear.".
However, the Indian Medical Association (Mumbai West Branch) general secretary Ghulam Arshad says- "You can only expect complications when you allow a person to practise something he is not trained in. This is why we hear misuse of dangerous drugs like steroids and intravenous therapy". Open Forum.
Delivered on June 110the judgement categorically state that a person who has studied one form of medicine cannot claim to treat a patient by drugs of another system which he might not have studied at any stage.
The judgement further says -- "A person who does not have knowledge of a particular system of medicine but practise in that system is a quack or to put it differently a charlatan.
The judgement was in response to an appeal filed by one Poonam Verma of Bombay against Dr. Ashwin Patel, a Homoeopath and others. Mrs Verma had moved the apex court after the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission dismissed her petition by an order of November 11th, 1994. In her petition she has charged Dr. Ashwin Patel and others of negligence and carelessness in treating her husband, Pramod, who subsequently expired.
Non-allopathic doctors are of the opinion that the apex courts decision needs to be reviewed as "it is bound to bring the primary healthy care system which is heavily dependent on non-allopathic doctors to a grinding halt.
Their argument is simple. India has approximately 11.5 lakh doctors, only 30 percent of whom are allopaths. Most allopaths refuse to practise in rural areas or city slums for want of better career prospects. The percentage of allopaths functioning in rural blocks where two thirds of the population lives in less than 10 per cent.
The government does not offer incentives to attract allopaths to go to rural areas claim some allopathic doctors. The World Health Organization(WHO) recommends that a minimum of five percent of countrys total budgetary allocation be enmarked for primary health care. The developed countries spend between seven to ten percent on this.
The Indian Medical Association(Mumbai branch) President V J Ruparel says -- "In a progressive state like Maharashtra, however the health budget is as low as three percent, 70 percent of which is spent on medical education and secondary and tertiary health care".
To provide adequate health care to thee rural population the state government had even issued an emergency government resolution which allowed Ayurvedacharyas to practise allopathy. Thee Ayurveda Boards assistant director B G Kane says-- " The logic behind this was simple. It is always better to provide at least some health care to people than no health care at all".
The Homoeopathic Integrated Medical Practitioners Association (HIMPA) Chairman, Sudhir Rao, says-- "It is for this very reason that most cottage hospitals at the taluka level and primary and district health centres have non-allopathic doctors as Class 11 and Class 111 medical officers. They are allowed to conduct allopathic OPD".
HIMPAs legal cell convener Paresh Navalkar observes-- These are institutionally trained registered doctors who provide reasonably adequate health care to the tribal population. The sudden exclusion of these trained doctors will surely create a vacuum in the medical field. It is likely that the rural populace may turn to quacks in sheer desperation".
Non-allopathic doctors claim that on many occasions they are left with no option but to prescribe allopathic cures. Dr. Govind Tithal of the Government Homoeopathic Hospital says-- For instance we have to be saved. With the new Supreme courts decision we will not be able to do this as IV fluids come under allopathic pharmacopoeia".
Barium salts, which are administrated to a person undergoing X-rays, tetanus, anti-snake or scorpion venom vaccines which are routinely used in tribal areas also fall in the banned list. "A person who has had a heart attack will have to bee turned down because the emergency drug- sorbitrate is allopathic". says Dr. Tithal.
Homoeopathy he says is a holistic science. A patient is not treated for a particular thing but as a whole person. One cannot say specifically that particular Homoeopathic drugs are effective against certain diseases". For quick relief we have to use allopathic drugs.
Dr. Arshad says-- "These doctors do not possess any genuine medical knowledge and only rely on information provided by the pharmaceutical companies who want to sell their products. They should not be allowed to practise allopathy just because their brand of medicines are not available".
Dr. Bal and Dr. Ruparel view the problem sympathetically, Says Dr. Bal --"Except pharmacology and certain aspects of physiology thee rest of the syllabi for allopathic and non-allopathic courses are the same. Perhaps these doctors should be trained and tested in the use of modern medicine and therapeutic concepts".
