About 1,000 private hospitals and nursing homes in Karnataka shut their out-patient departments (OPD) on December 11 to protest against the Centre allowing Ayush doctors to conduct surgeries.

"The OPDs were closed from dawn-to-dusk in all private hospitals and nursing homes across the state to protest against the National Medical Council permitting ayurvedic (Ayush) doctors and students to conduct surgeries using allopathic procedures amid the COVID pandemic," the Karnataka's Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) President told IANS here.

In a notification on November 20, the Central Council of Indian Medicine has allowed private and state-run Ayush practitioners to use allopathic procedures to conduct 58 types of surgeries on patients across the country. "All other services, including care of in-patients were not affected by the day-long nationwide strike, called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), as the Centre's decision will hamper Ayurvedic treatment and risk patients' health," the President said.

As human life is precious and medical sciences are best in their own domains, be they allopathy or ayurveda, mixing streams of medicine is risky because there are no short-cuts in saving lives, he added. "We urge the Central government to withdraw the notification and modify the clauses of the National Medical Council Act," he said. Favouring encouragement of research in ayurveda to bring out the best in the Indian medicine than mixing it with other forms of treatment, the Association said clubbing different types of treatment would have a negative impact on public health in the long run. "Though the notification objective appears to increase the number of doctors, the advantage would be lost due to inadequately trained medical graduates," said the President. The Association had directed its members to ensure their services to all COVID patients were not affected to contain the virus spread.