A Misguided Policy That Cuts Deep into Patient Safety

Context: Allowing graduates in Ayurveda to practise surgery without proper training/ apprenticeship can have adverse consequences for the safety of the patient.

Why “Ayurveda Surgery” is Not a Suitable Option

• Surgery is an interdisciplinary and multidomain endeavour: which requires knowledge of the modern medicine system, whereas Ayurveda is limited to a specific domain.
  • It is impossible for Ayurveda to incorporate surgical techniques while ignoring the other domains of modern medicine.
  • Ayurveda professionals lack clinical judgements: The surgeon needs to know when not to perform surgery, a skill commonly called clinical judge­ment; which is acquired through apprenticeship.
  • The idea of competence with­ out comprehension should not lead us into believing that surgery is a suitable subject for its application.
• Errors in surgery can be devastating:
  • Data from the United States suggests that up to 4,000 surgical errors occur each year despite well­ considered controls on who can perform surgery.
  • Legal mechanism like the Consumer Protection Act serves as an incentive to modern medical practitioners to provide high-quality health care.
• Fossilised development of Ayurveda: The traditional knowledge in India, like Ayurveda, has become the victim of self-serving apparatchiks; preventing its development and growth.
• Ayurveda surgery could deepen inequity: because Ayurveda surgery will be patronised only by the very poor with limited access to modern medical care.

Way Forward: Incorporate traditional medical systems into modern medicine.

• Increase the number of government medical colleges for reducing the shortage of trained medical personnel in rural areas.

Conclusion: Safety of patients should not become a victim of misguided policies based on a poor understanding of what safe surgery requires.