Advisory for Ayush Practitioners on Ethical Practices During COVID- 19 Pandemic

Preamble

The COVID-19 pandemic has re-emerged as a public health challenge. The burden of the disease and mortality are steadily increasing throughout the globe. Several social and economic factors are leading to devastating situations. Effective management to address this infection is still evolving and attempts are being made to integrate traditional interventions along with standard care. The Ministry of Ayush, Government of India has made tremendous efforts in developing National Guidelines and clinical management protocols such as Guidelines for self-care and home isolation during COVID-19, Guidelines for Ayush practitioners for COVID-19, and National clinical management protocol based on Ayurveda and Yoga for management of COVID-19.

Rational use

The huge networks of Ayush practitioners and Ayush health care setups have been significantly contributing in combating COVID-19 pandemic through preventive advocacies and management of COVID-19, across the Country. The Ayush practitioners’ contribution to combat the situation is emerging as an important one in the current situation. Now it is vital to cultivate and adopt the practice of rational and ethical use of Ayush advocacies/measures and treatment uniformly across India to avoid any misconceptions.

General advisory to Ayush Physicians

1. Encourage the health seekers and patients to adopt Ayush advocacies and measures as per the requirement based on the standard guidelines issued by the Ministry of Ayush. This may be in addition to standard advocacies of maintaining social distancing, wearing mask essentially and washing hands frequently.
2. Encourage the suspected patients with symptoms to undergo laboratory tests such as RT-PCR for early detection of disease.
3. Avoid making tall claims on prevention and management of COVID-19 and also to avoid undue confusion among health seekers and patients.
4. Advises and advocacies of Ayush practitioners should not conflict any National Guidelines released by Govt. of India for COVID-19. (Click Here For Guidelines of COVID-19 and of Ayush)
5. Encourage health seekers and patient to take up Vaccination as per their allocated time under the National Vaccination drive and try to remove any misconception associated with it among public by creating awareness toward it.
6. Issue advocacies based on the standard guidelines and documents issued by the Ministry of Ayush.
7. Adopt appropriate referral strategy according to the stage and severity of disease to facilitate timely and appropriate medical care to the needy.
8. Refer the Ministry of Ayush website for updated information on guidelines and protocol of Ayush in COVID-19 from time to time.

Source: Ministry of Ayush