Traditional medics cry foul over having them under Ayurvedic Act

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Traditional medicine practitioners in Sri Lanka emphasize that it is absolutely unacceptable to regulate traditional medicine and Ayurvedic medicine under the same Act since traditional medicine and Ayurvedic medicine systems are two different and unique medical systems.

A group of traditional medical practitioners announced this while attending a press conference held at the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) headquarters yesterday.

They pointed out that indigenous medicine or “Hela Vedakama” has been used to heal the Sri Lankan people for thousands of years. Local ingredients found in the Sri Lankan natural environment are used as medicines in local medicine. Therefore, clear differences can be seen between indigenous medicine and Ayurvedic medicine that originated in India.

Therefore, indigenous medical practitioners emphasized that regulating these two medical methods through the same Act is foolish and not appropriate at all. Therefore, they urge the government that the indigenous medical system should be regulated by a medical board consisting of traditional medicine practitioners.

They alleged that the government is trying to amend the Ayurveda Act No. 31 of 1961 and thereby destroy indigenous medicine.

“Ayurveda and indigenous medicine are two different medical systems which are 100 percent unique to each other, so it is ironic that indigenous medicine is observed by an Ayurvedic medical council,” traditional medical practitioner Harsha Kumar Suriyaarachchi said.

According to them, by amending the Ayurvedic Medicine Act, the government expects to regulate massage parlours. “In order to protect and regulate indigenous medical system, a local medical council should be established, not an Ayurvedic medical council. If the new Bill gets parliamentary approval, an unregistered indigenous practitioner can be jailed for two years,” Nimal Warnasuriya, a traditional medical practitioner said. They said that these so-called laws will inconvenience more than 60,000 indigenous practitioners and there is a risk of losing local medicine altogether. Therefore, they emphasize that a medical council consisting of local doctors should be established to regulate the local medical system.

Dharma Sri Abeyratne