Reacting sharply to the criticism of Dr S Ranganathan, director of ClinRise Derma Pvt Ltd,  that Siddha medical system does not provide cure for diseases, the Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research (CTMR) in Chennai has said that 90 per cent of the patients attending their medical camps require only Siddha medicines and which are enough for them.

Dr Ranganathan, who claims that he is a research scientist in Siddha system, wrote in an article sent to Pharmabiz that many of the private Siddha practitioners, despite their high educational qualifications, not properly understood the fundamentals of the traditional medicines and the system’s approach towards healthcare management. He wanted the Siddha practitioners to stick on their own system and avoid unfair activity of prescribing allopathic drugs, which are alien to them.

Countering this statement of Dr Ranganathan, the secretary of CTMR, Dr T Thirunarayanan said not all the Siddha doctors are keen on prescribing allopathy medicines or asking the government to permit them to prescribe.

He further alleged that Dr Ranganathan’s main objective was to promote his contract research activities for financial gains.

CTMR argues by saying that Siddha is a complete holistic system with focus on prevention, promotion, rejuvenation and cure, and not just a paramedical science. “Many conditions of bio-medicine do not offer a cure, but even in those patients Siddha improves the quality of life in a much better way. Siddha doctors in government hospitals and PHCs attend to over 100 patients every day with practically no time to think beyond”, says Dr Thirunarayanan.

While agreeing with a point made by Dr Rangananthan, the secretary of CTMR has said the government healthcare institutions need to be strengthened and every Siddha association has been highlighting the issue for several years. That is where the lacuna of technical persons in research institutes and teaching institutes, for which, blaming Siddha medical science is wrong, he added.

CTMR also claims that plenty of research articles have been published by many institutes and Siddha researchers in globally popular scientific publications about which Dr Ranganathan would be unaware of it.