Day #25: Traditional Healthcare - Science or otherwise?

14th April 2020: In the past 2 days, we have come across two cases of case of the Ayurvedic Doctor dying of Covid-19, one of them came from Indore and the other from Meerut.  News reports are sketchy about the source of infection and the previous nature  of the doctor's medical condition. But, one thing is clear, neither were practicing their Ayurvedic knowledge when they got infected as per the current reports.  While the Central Government apart from hesitantly endorsing the AYUSH guideline for building immunity as a preventive care hasn't gone any further in adopting or strategizing visibly. Even the association of traditional medicine practitioners at the national level have been rather guarded in the initial days and have only emphasized their capacity to build immunity in the body faster. So, it has been left to the States to figure out how best to adopt. State after State across India seems to finally acknowledge and adopt the traditional health care practices. 

Kerala: As lot of good things do, this too happened in Kerala. While Central Ministers may still be impressed only if British royalty were to be cured by Indian Ayurveda hospitals, the Kerala government silently adopted the traditional healthcare expertise available in the state as part of its treatment protocol. The Chief Minister and the Health Minister time and again urged people to have preventive care using the ayurvedic healthcare system that is abundantly available in that state. Many of their educative daily press brief videos have been sane reprieve from otherwise cacophony crock.  

Telangana: Yesterday, there was a news that the Telangana State AYUSH is preparing treatment protocol using ayurveda. Five of the Eight hospitals designated for Covid-19 patients by the government will have the AYUSH protocol alongside the allopathy symptomatic treatment procedure as well.

Goa: In Goa, the CMs statement on the Ayurvedic procedure to be included in treatment seems to have met with stiff opposition, with the Congress claiming that the people of Goa are used as guinea pigs. As far as I know Ayurvedic medicine are not tested in guinea pigs, monkeys or rats. But, leaving their bad choice of metaphor, they have used the hesitant GO of the Govt. of India to their advantage and indicate that there is no GoI recommendation to the effect that AYUSH can be used for treatment. 

Assam: Another small State, Assam seems to have adopted Yoga as a stress relief for patients in the isolation wards and is organizing yoga sessions through tele-conferencing for them. This is the only such experiment being reported just now from anywhere. The AYUSH department had asked for Yoga exponents to do studies on the potential impact on Covid-19 patients through Yoga a couple of days ago. 

Tamil Nadu: Tamil Nadu always has had Siddha / Ayurveda practitioners coming up with their response in every past epidemic situation and has already had the experience of chikun gunea which was treated effectively by traditional health care practitioners. So, obviously the kabasura kudineer came to be in popular demand in the early days of the pandemic as well and the traditional medicine shops are open across the state during the lock down as essential service providers.  The government gave an undertaking to the High Court in Chennai to come up with a procedure using traditional healthcare and an ex-Central Minister from the State, a medical practitioner at that, endorsed Siddha medicine to be included in the procedure. Couple of Chennai based eminent Ayurvedic and Siddha practitioners came up clear immunity building measures and there is at least on case of a remote treatment of Covid-19 positive case shared by a Ayurvedic doctor till date. 

Maharastra, Odisha, Rajasthan: Maharashtra seems to have decided that the AYUSH Doctors can be used as extra hands for the Covid-19 cases rather than for their healthcare expertise, so, it is urgently recruiting them into the allopathy healthcare system through an online course designed by AIIMS and based on a test they will given online. Being the commercial capital of India, one of the first cases of someone claiming treatment for Covid-19 using traditional medicine cases for a price was reported here and of course, a case has been filed against the person.  Now, Odisha govt. and Rajasthan govt. also seem to be following the Maharashtra government and inducting its AYUSH practitioners into the allopathic healthcare system of the govt. after an online course as well. Andhra Pradesh seems to be going the same route with the Ayurvedic doctors, hospitals and students recruited in what it calls, 'Covid Warriors' initiative. The Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD) based out of the state seems to have meanwhile come up with 5 formulations for preventing the spread using Ayurvedic medicine that they are administering to their own staff. 

In another news, in response to the PMs asking practitioners of traditional healthcare systems to send proposals for the development of treatment procedure, AYUSH Department has apparently received over 2000 proposals apart from numerous phone calls, emails and text messages from practitioner across the country. If this much proposals can be generated - and in the midst of a lock down in less than 15 days, it can be taken as an indicator that the country doesn't have any dearth of talent or confidence in developing a treatment procedure from the traditional streams of healthcare against the virus. The matter of concern of course is that this will be vetted by a team consisting of DBT, CSIR and AYUSH practitioners according to the news report. To me this is an indication that ultimately modern western science educated babus from Delhi are to make a judgement on traditional science about which they may have no understanding nor an inclination. The Minister of State of AYUSH has indicated that there is a 'task force' set-up by the Prime Minister to 'scientifically validate' the AYUSH claims.

Obviously the mainstream media driven by the priorities of the drug companies that must be providing them adequate revenues seem to be already in play. In the middle of a thousand conspiracy theories and fake news masquerading as visual media news, while it could have come up guidelines and self regulations on many of them to contain the spread of hatred and divisive political agenda, the Press Council of India came up with direction to media houses to not broadcast  or advertise any traditional medicine solutions. This was the response to AYUSH department being forced to clarity its own earlier notification.

I don't know how the Ayurvedic doctors recruited to be allopathic helping hands feel about being only counted as hands and legs that can be giving care rather than for their knowledge of science or competence in analyzing or treating patients, but, they definitely will go through the conflict of what  is 'science'?  Now if Indian traditional healthcare systems are not accepted as science in this country, there is no hope that it will be thus accepted anywhere else. While it may be seen as asking much in times such as this from a State, it cannot be denied we have continued to exist indecisive in our attitude towards traditional healthcare systems in this country. The inability of a Nation State to decide in ordinary times how much it needs to prioritize diverse knowledge streams hits it most during such emergency times.