Karnataka government is planning to bring in a legislation to weed out quacks operating in the state in the field of healthcare. Further, the legislation would aim to ensure only qualified medical practitioners are working in nursing homes and other healthcare establishments, said R Ashok, State Health and family welfare minister, Karnataka Government.
According to him, qualified doctors have been facing various problems due to fake medical practitioners, including curing of patients who were initially treated by quacks. Therefore the government has decided to initiate action against quacks. He said the Government is yet to finalise a time frame for tabling the legislation in the Karnataka Assembly.
The Anti Quackery Cell of the Indian Medical Association Bangalore branch, estimates over 80,000 quacks operating in the State with over 20,000 in Bangalore city alone. These quacks claim to do everything from medical termination of pregnancy, to curing HIV/AIDS. There are instances of quacks marketing their services as ayurveda or siddha medical practitioners.
The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act 1954, prohibits publicity and propaganda of services from cure of particular diseases listed under the Act. But the quacks under the garb of healers openly advertise their suspicious services and charge exorbitant fees from the unsuspecting public, stated Bangalore IMA branch officials.
The D&MR Act lists as many as 54 ailments including HIV/AIDA, plague, obesity, appendicitis, blindness, impotence, sterility, paralysis, venereal diseases and mental illnesses which should be treated only by qualified medical practitioners.
However the drugs control department, which is the regulating body for implementing the Act, had managed to book cases against only a couple of quacks who violated the rules. The main issues for the drug inspectors both in the allopathic and the ayurveda sector is that people operate surreptitiously and as there services are mostly fly-by-night, it is difficult to trap the cases. The drugs control department has launched a campaign to implement the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act with a view to book such people.
The state government on a tip off from some locals that some quacks were dispensing fake medicines for 'Chikungunya', (a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes) in Chitradurga district, which is one of the regions where the disease is rampant, raided the centres and arrested the culprits Ramappa, Kenchayya and KP Jayashankar. The raid was headed by the Karnataka health minister, accompanied the by the principal health secretary Usha Ganeshan, assistant drugs controller Sripathi Rao and Ayush registrar Hanumegowda.