Ayurvedic corona warriors on the warpath in Rajasthan

<br>Babulal Barala, state secretary of the Aayush Medical Association and World Ayurveda Council, Rajasthan, told IANS, “Around 90 per cent of doctors in the field, visiting hotspots for sampling, surveying and testing, are Ayurvedic doctors. But the state government has not spoken anything to motivate these Ayurvedic warriors.”

Alleging bias, he pointed to the recent recruitment of over 2,000 Allopathic doctors, creating new positions overnight. Though Ayurvedic contractual workers had been sweating day and night for the last seven years, they had been ignored despite 1,300 positions lying vacant, he added.

He said in the last seven years, not one Ayurveda doctor had been recruited despite vacancies.

Hit by the neglect, the Ayurvedic doctors, working on contract and as frontline corona warriors, have threatened to quit.

Ayush Chikitsak Sangharsh Samiti convenor Dr Ashish Dikshit said, “Ayurvedic contractual doctors have been waiting for regularisation for the last seven years. They were shocked when the state government appointed 2,000 Allopathic doctors overnight”.

The Ayurvedic doctors were doing the same task as Allopathetic doctors, but they were paid only Rs 22,000 and the Allopathic doctors over Rs 50,000 a month, said Barala. “The lives of Ayurvedic doctors is at risk as they are making regular field visits,” he said.

Overall, 5,000 regular and 2,000 contractual doctors were leading the fight against Covid-19 in the state, he said. “We are saving ourselves from infection by having our ‘kadha’ and other home remedies. We know none of the officials will come to help us,” Barala said.

He said one Aurvedic doctor Dr Madhusudan died of heart attack in Bharatpur while serving Covid-19 patient, but his family was yet to receive any help from the government.

Sharma said the biased attitude had left Ayurvedic doctors demotivated and around 1,300 of them had signed the joint resignation. More would join if the demand for regularisation and gequal pay was not met, said Sharma.

–IANS<br>arc/pcj