Vanita Muralikumar, chairperson, Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM), has said that the council has developed a nine-month bridge course to train practitioners of Ayurveda to treat commonly encountered health problems faced by residents of rural areas. The council is awaiting the approval of the Union government.
“Ayurveda curriculum has both Ayurveda and modern medicine. While remaining in our own platform, we want to make use of the advanced technology for the growth and development of the Ayurveda system to treat the commonly encountered health problems using modern medicine, within the line of limitation. The bridge course has been developed with that in view. It would not only help the competence of the practitioners and effectively improve the health services, but also help overcome shortage of doctors in rural areas,” Dr. Vanita told The Hindu here on Friday.
She was here to participate in the graduation day at the Taranath Government Ayurveda College. Dr. Vanita said that the Union government, which had been making use of the services of Accredited Social Health Activists workers to improve the health services by imparting a short-duration training, could also make use of the services of Ayurveda practitioners who attend the bridge course.
According to her, there is a shortage of around 75,000 doctors in the country and the Union government had decided to make use of the services of practitioners of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddi and Homeopathy to provide health services in government hospitals. Around seven to eight States had responded positively and were making use of their services.
The CCIM, in its endeavour to improve the quality of education had initiated steps including imparting training to the faculty, ushering in reforms in the curriculum to improve the competence of students right from first year by introducing hands on training and give best exposure on the clinical side.
In addition, awards were being instituted to motivate and encourage researches in the field. “The CCIM has identified around 30 centres, including two in Karnataka, to train teachers,” she said.
Dr. Vanita underlined the need for protecting and developing the flora and fauna to ensure that there would not be shortage of medicinal herbs for preparation of ayurveda medicines.
She also informed that the CCIM would take up the issue with the Union government with a request to lay stress on developing the flora and fauna. She also informed that CCIM had adopted e-governance for according recognition to colleges for the academic year 2015-16 and digitising information on 3.5 lakh practitioners so that there would not be any scope for manipulation by managements.
Union govt. will make use of their services, says chairperson of Central Council of Indian Medicine
