Government Will Form A National Policy On Integrative Medicine

Dr. Rajesh Kotecha, Special Secretary, Union Ministry of AYUSH said that the government is ready to extend its support for attempts at building an integrative medicine. He inaugurated the international conference on integrative Ayurveda and modern medicine at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences at Kochi on Sunday. He further said that in integrative health, all streams of health sciences came together in a synergistic manner to have a  positive impact on health outcomes. The need to strengthen the healthcare system, Amrita Samyogam 2017 International Conference on Integrative Ayurveda and Modern Medicine has urged the Central Government to form a national policy on the integration of Ayurveda and allopathy.

Dr. Rajesh Kotecha said "The Government is serious about promoting a model where experts in different domains contribute to the health science and some migration of knowledge occurs between each stream. Indian healing systems are holistic and intuitive - by definition; they cannot fully fit into all parameters demanded by Western medicine."

He added that the government is setting up a nationwide AYUSH grid connecting all hospitals and research labs to record case histories and observations so that a huge amount of evidences can be generated through data analytics about the efficacy of Ayurveda.

"While robust research is being conducted into Ayurveda, the problem arises in implementation of integrative medicine at the level of public health. This is because Ayurveda is still not accepted as a science by the Allopathic community. The Government of India has decided to extend its full support to Amrita University's initiative on integrative medicine," Dr Rajesh Kotecha said.

Experts who were assembled at the conference said that the central government needs to formulate a national policy on the integration of Ayurveda with allopathy do that the country can take its rightful place as the global leader in integrative medicine. There were 60 experts and 1,000 delegates participating from around the world . It was a two-day event called Amrita Samyogam, held in collaboration with Amrita University's School of Ayurveda.

The conference was brought together by allopathic doctors, Ayurveda practitioners and modern scientists on a common platform to identify strategies for integrating Ayurveda with allopathy to manage cancer, auto-immune diseases like arthritis and diabetes, neuro-degenerative diseases and mental health.

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