OM SHRI PARMATMANE NAMAH
To Dated : 12/10/2020
All IMA office bearers and members
Friends,
I have gone through the contents of the letters posted by my dear friend Dr. Naveen Kumar Sharma, the president IMA, Meerut branch on IMA WhatsApp group. I have also heard and read the views of our national president Dr. Rajan Sharma. It may be quite natural to have such kind of reaction to the declaration of Ayush protocol for the management of Covid 19 pandemic by none other than our honourable health minister Dr. Harsh Wardhan ji who himself happens to be a modern medicine ENT surgeon.
Not only this, the declaration of Niti Ayog regarding formation of many groups for the mplementation of integrative medicine in the country has also provoked us to a great extent. We are considering it as a threat to the health of our countrymen and to our own existence.
I request all of you to please consider following points before having a knee jerk response and planning for a national level agitation. We are amongst the most educated and responsible class of citizens of our country. We are still the most respected citizens also despite having many dents in our reputation in the recent past. Our concern for the health of our masses is very genuine but we have to be very mature and careful in our response over such sensitive issues which have a direct impact on the lives of the masses of the nation. The whole country is watching our response.
It is very strange that we know nothing about ayurveda and yoga (Ayush) but still believe firmly that these disciplines of medicine can't have any element of science in them. I don't know why but we don't have any respect, sympathy and concern for these treatment modalities which originated in our own country.
Instead of having a soft corner for them as they belong to our own country, we have ingrained aversion to them. Why we are hell bent upon tarnishing the image of our own country? The whole world has accepted Yoga. Ayurveda is also flourishing in western countries like never before but we don't miss any opportunity to denigrate them. Shouldn't we feel proud and happy for our own Indian sciences? Shouldn't we behave like big brothers for these sciences of our own and support them even if we feel some deficiencies in them? Can we do it for the sake of our own country? Can we consider Ayush as complementary instead of a competitor?
Friends, as far as the comments of our national president on COVID 19 management on Ayush are concerned, I wish to share the experience of our hospital with you. Our multispecialty hospital at Meerut was declared as COVID hospital few months back. Knowing well that there is nothing specific in modern medicine to deal with COVID19 other than a support system, we, the team of doctors and the management of the hospital, decided to treat the patients of COVID19 with integrated approach using both allopathy and ayurveda medicines with the intent to help the patients in the best possible mannerand with best possible available resources in these uncertain and dire circumstances. We created a team of best possible and highly qualified doctors of both the sciences to treat the patients of COVID19 at our hospital. We have treated more than five hundred patients of COVID19 so far with excellent results without even a single mortality so far. Our team of modern medicine doctors is very much satisfied with the results of integration of ayurveda with allopathy.
Our all staff who, unfortunately, got infected with COVID 19 prefers ayurveda now instead of allopathy for their own treatment. Our many doctors and all other staff members of the hospital are on ayurveda medicines for prophylaxis also.
We shouldn't forget that we ourselves have no cure for this dreaded disease. If we had any, we wouldn't be losing patients in great numbers even now in whole of the world. We are using antiviral drugs on experimental and compassionate basis without any concrete scientific back up.
We all know that our most promising antiviral drug, Remdesivir was originally developed for HCV but failed. It was later tried for the treatment of Ebola but failed again. Now USFDA allowed it to be used as experimental drug as there was nothing else with us to fight with COVID19. Now reports of studies are showing that it is showing some benefit although it is far from being called as a saviour drug. Will you call this “hit and trial” medicine a science or chance?
Another antiviral drug, Tocilizumab, which has been allowed to be used not on scientific but compassionate basis, has failed in trials but still managed to find a place in the protocols.
Steroids are also of some help that too only in advanced cases but not without adverse effects. They are causing troublesome shoot up in blood sugar levels even in non diabetic patients. Their use early in the disease is proving to be disastrous.
With this kind of a helpless situation, how can we boast about modern medical science and demean Ayush or any other system of medicine? How can we appear to be so arrogant instead of being humble in this difficult time? How can we question the scientific studies of other systems of medicine?
This COVID19 has brought the whole modern medical science to it’s knees. It has shown the mirror to our high tech ventilators also. We are looking as helpless as we were in 1918 at the time of Spanish flu pandemic despite claims of magical advancements in the field of medicine.
I have not contracted the disease yet but I promise you that I will chose Ayurveda over allopathy for my own treatment if I have to choose only one medicine. I myself got operated for laparoscopic cholecystectomy in 2018. I didn't allow use of any prophylactic antibiotic for my own self and took only ayurveda medicines for that purpose with excellent and uneventful recovery.
Friends, we all consider modern medicine as a great science but do we know that what did we achieve so far in the field of health?
Do we know about current health status and the health crisis of our country despite modern medicine working as our main medicine for more than a century now?
Do we know that WHO is strongly recommending the inclusion of traditional medicines in the health care systems world wide?
Do we know that the integrative medicine is the idea of WHO which is working on it seriously and whichis going to be the future medicine of the world?
According to WHO, the traditional medicine is an option offered by well functioning health system which is people centred and that balances curative services with preventive care. WHO finds traditional medicine as an important resource in prevention and management of chronic diseases and fulfilment of the needs of the aged population. Do we know it?
Do we know that WHO has accepted that modern medical system has become economically unsustainable even in the richest countries of the world?
Do we know that five crore people of our country migrate to below poverty line each year due to allopathy treatment costs?
Do we know that despite claims of magical advancements in the field of modern medicine, the disease burden of our country is rising exponentially?
Do we know that we have failed miserably in dealing with communicable as well as non-communicable diseases?
Do we know that our greatest tool to fight communicable diseases, the magic bullets of yester years, the antibiotics have failed and antimicrobial resistance is the biggest global health threat as declared by UN in 2016?
Do we know that we are heading towards post antibiotic era where simple infections may once again kill and surgeries will be impossible to perform as declared by WHO in 2014?
Do we know that apart from becoming ineffective against germs, the antibiotics have done more harm than good to the human health? Antibiotics have destroyed our own microbiome which is the keystone for our immunity, behavioural and metabolic functions? Atopic, inflammatory, auto immune and metabolic disorders (like allergies, asthma, arthritis, cancers, diabetes, heart diseases, obesity, fatty liver and metabolic syndrome) all have been found to have link with the use of antibiotics?
Do we know that it took many decades and billions of dollars to eradicate a single virus of polio from the world and it is not possible for all the viruses?
Do we know that vaccines have limited utility and we couldn’t make a vaccine for HIV or HCV till date?
Do we know that we have failed in controlling NCDs also?
Do we know that according to the planning commission of India, the incidence of NCDs will rise multiple times in coming years in our country?
Do we know that we have no cure for chronic diseases? Nothing for kidney and liver diseases? We only have technology for dialysis or transplants?
Do we know that organs have started failing in alarming numbers that too at younger ages?
Do we know that we can't change the joints and kidneys of all and we have to check the rising incidence of organ failures?
Do we know that iatrogenic cause of diseases has become a leading killer along with heart diseases and cancers?
Do we know that the USFDA has declared that the clinical trial medicine, on the basis of which we claim modern medicine to be a great science, is of little use? USFDA has accepted that the clinical trial medicines are designed for an average patient as “one size fits all approach” which is useful only for some patients.
It further says that we need personalised medicine which is nothing but the basic concept of Ayurveda only where every patient is considered as different who needs different medicine for the same illness.
Do we know that we are like commandos who can deal with disasters efficiently, although, with many adverse effects and Ayurveda is like the border security force who can prevent the disasters in best possible manner with least harm.
Do we know that we are heading for public health catastrophe and we can't afford to neglect Ayush any more?
Do we know that how badly we need to reform our health care system?
Do we know that we are lucky to be blessed with world's oldest and eternal, not only medical but whole life sciences like Ayurveda and Yoga which can prove to be a boon for us to check the ever rising disease burden of the country?
Do we know that China has already done that and it treats its own traditional medicine at par with modern medicine?
Do we know that resident doctors in most of allopathic hospitals of India are BAMS and not MBBS?
Do we know that we may become a laughing stock in front of the world by opposing our own sciences which even the countries of origin of modern medicine are accepting with open hearts.
Friends, our aim is health of the nation by all possible means. We can't do it alone. Integration is the need of the hour. Why can't we read the clear writing on the wall? Let us accept it for the sake of the real welfare of the mankind. Technologically, we are undoubtedly much more advanced than Ayush. Let us, instead of criticising it, extend a helping hand to Ayush so that it can to prove itself on modern parameters too. Let us show the world the power of India. Let us be the torch bearer for the whole world in the field of health.
Let us not consider Ayush as our rival rather accept it as our younger brother.
Together, we can conquer the world. Till what time shall we remain dependent on the western science for our own health? Why can't we become self reliant in the field of health? A great opportunity is knocking at our doors. Let us be wise and not waste it. In the last but not the least, let us regain our lost glory.
Let us do it together.
Om Tat Sat
Dr. Sanjay Jain, MS Ortho,
Mob. 9837019619
drsanjay7130@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment