Jharkhand: 217 AYUSH doctors get appointment letters

Ranchi: Chief minister Hemant Soren on Monday said that Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) is the most effective indigenous technique of treating diseases and the government is committed to promote it.

He was speaking at an event organised by the health department to hand over appointment letters to 217 AYUSH doctors. We will not only stop at just recruitment of doctors but we are planning to open colleges which will teach courses on Ayurveda, Unani and Homeopathy so that we can bring more and more youngsters in this stream," said Soren.

Soren also said that AYUSH will help in filling the gaps of medical treatment in rural areas of the state as a large chunk of population believes in the techniques used by AYUSH practitioners.

This is for the first time in Jharkhand that over 200 AYUSH doctors have been recruited to run the health and wellness centres. The doctors will be deployed at Panchakarma centres as well as in primary healthcare centre (PHC), community health centre (CHC) and health and wellness centres.

Health minister Banna Gupta called upon the AYUSH doctors and urged them to not only treat patients but be empathetic towards them.

"Many among you will be attending to patients from far-flung areas who do not get to reach the mainstream hospitals and have strong belief in natural treatment methods adopted by AYUSH practitioners. I would like to request you on this occasion that along with providing treatment to patients, behave with them with empathy as it works like magic for a patient who comes to you with high hope," he added.

Stressing the importance of AYUSH and its origin, Banna said that this is the most ancient way of treatment which has been mentioned even in our mythological stories. "Bajrangbali Ji presents us a great example about AYUSH as when he couldn't differentiate between Sanjeevani herb he lifted the whole hillock which had shrubs on it to save Lakshman's life. So serve like a devdoot (godsend) for our patients and the state government will ensure that you do not face any problem on job," added Banna.

The event also saw signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state health department and Prashanti Medical Services and research foundation for providing care to cardiac patients from the state free of cost. As per MoU, Sri Satya Sai Heart Hospital in Ahmedabad and Rajkot will perform free cardiac surgeries for children who have congenital heart diseases in their hospital.

The MoU was exchanged between director in-chief health services, Jharkhand, Dr Krishna Kumar, and managing trustee of Prashanti Medical Services and Research Foundation, Manoj Bhimani. Bhimani said: "We will be providing surgeries to 1,000 patients from Jharkhand every year and the state government will provide them transportation to hospitals in Gujarat."

Additional chief secretary (health), Arun Kumar Singh, said among 1,000 patients which will be provided quality medical care by Sri Sathya Sai Heart hospital in Gujarat, 500 will be children with congenital heart diseases and 500 will be adults with a need of heart surgeries.