The AP State branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has demanded that the government should verify degrees of all doctors to ensure that they practise the system of medicine in which they have graduated. Reacting to the police raids on clinics and other establishments, IMA president Nalluri Raghava Rao, said even doctors possessing degrees in allopathic medicine should not practise other systems of medicine. He also requested the government to take stern action against quacks practicing without any qualifications.
Dr Rao said that increasing incidence of diseases like AIDS and TB was mainly because of handling of such cases by quacks. The IMA wanted the government to expedite the process of registering medical establishments by implementing provisions of the AP Private Medical Care Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2002, and to stop harassment of doctors who were giving treatment to naxalites.
The Act provides for re-registration of hospitals and clinics in the state by producing bonafide degree certificates by the doctors.
According to a senior doctor, "We have been exploited by unscrupulous people practicing medicine without any formal education. This calls for eliminating quackery, which is prevalent in the state on a large scale. These quacks are playing with the lives of innocent people. The government should help weed out this menace and stop exploitation of the people by the quacks."
Dr C L Venkat Rao, Medical Council of India Member, in another statement, advised all medical practitioners of allopathic and Indian systems to continue their practice by displaying their degree and registration certificates at their clinics. He regretted that police had tried to equate practitioners of the Indian systems of medicine with quacks because of their lack of knowledge. He condemned the police interrogation of some qualified graduates in the Indian system of medicine.