Central Council of Indian Medicine, Ayush Ministry has authorized some streams of post-graduate Ayurveda practitioners to perform specific types of surgeries.
Central Council of Indian Medicine, through a Notification dated November 20, 2020, has enlisted 39 general surgical procedures and around 19 procedures involving eye, ear, nose and throat by amending the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post-Graduate Ayurveda Education) 2016. The regulations are known as the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Amendment Regulations, 2020. The Ayurveda Practitioners will be trained to perform surgical procedures like excision of benign tumours, amputation of gangrene, nasal and cataract surgeries.
Only the PG Scholar specialized in Shalya and Shalakya shall be trained and then allowed perform these surgeries. The Notification doesn’t allow Ayurveda practitioners to perform all types of surgeries. According to the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), these types of surgeries are already being performed in the Ayurveda Institutes for over two decades, the Notification is just to give legitimacy.
According to the November 20 gazette notification, the procedures listed include removal of metallic and non-metallic foreign bodies from non-vital organs, excision of a simple cyst or benign tumours such as lipoma, fibroma, schwannoma etc of non-vital organs, amputation of gangrene, traumatic wound management, foreign body removal from the stomach, squint surgery, cataract surgery and functional endoscopic sinus surgery.
