It also clarified that the latest notification will not make any policy shift in the matter of practice of surgical procedures by practitioners of Ayurveda

The Ministry of AYUSH has clarified that the notification by the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) does not allow any Shalya and Shalakya Post Graduates to take up any other types of surgeries in line with Modern Medicine.

The Ministry released an official statement and said, “It has come to the notice of the Ministry of AYUSH that some mis-reported and incorrectly interpreted versions of the above notification have surfaced in some media platforms, leading to mis-information about the nature and purpose of the said notification.”

The CCIM, the statutory body that regulates the Indian Medical systems of Ayurveda, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Unani Medicine issued a notification on November 20 to streamline some of the provisions of the regulations concerning Post Graduate Ayurveda Education by adding clarity and definition to the same.

It was however misinterpreted by some media publications and medical bodies including IMA. The IMA claimed that it may empower practitioners with undeserving areas of practice.

In a tweet, it wrote, “#IMA unequivocally condemns uncivil ways of the Central Council of Indian Medicine to arrogate itself to vivisect Modern Medicine and empower its practitioners with undeserving areas of practice.”

https://twitter.com/IMAIndiaOrg/status/1330171658716508161

“The said council has come out with a gazette notification of a list of surgical procedures which can be performed by its practitioners. IMA has no objections to the list of vernacular terms that they have coined. They have no right to use the technical terms, techniques and procedures of modern medicine,” IMA said further in an official statement.

However, the CCIM has now clarified that the notification only relates to Shalya and Shalakya streams of Post Graduate Education in Ayurveda and specifies a total of 58 surgical procedures that PG scholars of these streams need to be practically trained in, it said.

“The notification is specific to these specified surgical procedures and does not allow Shalya and Shalakya Post Graduates to take up any other types of surgery,” the ministry said in the statement.

It is important to enable them to independently perform the said activities after completion of their PG Degree, it said further.

It also clarified that the said notification will not make any policy shift in the matter of practice of surgical procedures by practitioners of Ayurveda besides clarifying the use of terminology in the notification calling it ‘all scientific advances including standardized terminologies are inheritances of the entire mankind.’

“The modern terminologies in the field of medicine, are not modern from a temporal perspective, but are derived substantially from ancient languages like Greek, Latin and even Sanskrit, and later languages like Arabic,” it said.

The notification also said, “In the instant notification, modern terms are adopted as per requirement to ensure that the same is understood widely in the medical profession, in the stake-holding disciplines like the medico-legal, health IT etc as well as by the members of the public.”

It said that the notification includes not just the Ayurveda practitioners but also professionals of other stake-holding disciplines like the medico-legal, health IT, insurance among others as well as the members of the public. Hence the use of modern terminology was required.