The Telegraph,December 6,2010
New Delhi, Dec. 5: A letter purportedly from the apex modern medicine regulator, which had stirred anger by threatening legal action against practitioners of traditional medicine who prescribe modern drugs, has been revealed to be fake.
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has said it did not send the letter that had directed health and police officials and district magistrates across India to take legal action against graduates of traditional medicine who are found prescribing modern drugs to patients.
The letter of August 10, 2010, which has a signature and the name of former MCI secretary Dr A.R.N. Setalvad, claimed the action would be part of “an anti-quackery campaign” to be launched on October 2. The letter described as quacks those doctors who had only degrees in traditional systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Unani or Siddha but prescribed modern drugs.
The letter had triggered concern and anger among graduates of traditional medicine who often find themselves forced to prescribe modern drugs to patients in rural areas and city outskirts where modern doctors with MBBS degrees are not available.
The letter had called on district authorities to keep traditional practitioners “under strict and close supervision” and to launch legal action under Sections 419 and 420 (impersonation and cheating) of the Indian Penal Code against any of these practitioners who prescribed modern drugs.
“It would have been absolute injustice — after 30 years of serving people, we were going to be branded cheats,” said Mahendra Pratap Sharma, a traditional medicine practitioner in Mandi Dhanaura, a town in western Uttar Pradesh, who has been family physician for dozens of rural families.
“I have had to prescribe modern drugs many times — drugs for high fevers, antibiotics in septicaemia, medicines to control hypertension, and even medicines used in the first response to heart attacks,” Sharma said.
It is unclear how many district health or police officials received the letter and how many acted on it. But Sharma learnt about the letter after he heard that local district health officials had informally begun questioning traditional medicine practitioners about their practices.
“We could sense the beginning of harassment,” he said. A group of these practitioners from Uttar Pradesh complained to the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), the apex body regulating Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani.
The MCI responded to a query from the CCIM on November 16, saying the MCI had not issued the letter calling for an anti-quackery campaign. On November 24, the CCIM mailed its own letter to all the recipients of the previous letter, asserting that the earlier letter was a fake.
It is still unclear who sent the original letter. A source in the MCI told The Telegraph that Dr Setalvad, whose name appears on the letter, had been asked to proceed on leave after the new board of governors had taken over the MCI in May this year.
Dr Setalvad was not immediately available for comment. “This kind of a letter from the MCI is unwarranted — we only regulate practitioners of modern medicine,” the source said.
“This is obvious mischief-mongering,” said Bharat Bhushan, a former assistant registrar at the CCIM. “It could have been aimed at creating trouble for the government and confusion for district-level authorities.”
He added: “The letter was cleverly drafted, selectively quoting some portions of Supreme Court judgments against the practice of medicine across different domains. But states have the authority to empower graduates of traditional medicine to selectively prescribe modern drugs.”
Graduates in traditional medicine in India have to undergo a six-year formal education programme similar to the MBBS programme. “If you deny us the right to prescribe modern drugs, patients will be harmed,” said Sharma.
-- Shared by Ratul Das
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