Govt plans to certify traditional 'doctors'

The government plans to certify individuals who may not have the prescribed qualifications to be healthcare practitioners but bear knowledge gained from previous generations for certain treatments, such as for snake bites, jaundice, and bone-setting, two officials said.

- Dhirendra Kumar

"They have the expertise and experience, but they do not have any qualification or formal degrees and it stands in the way of their social acceptance," one of them said. "The government through its autonomous certification body, Quality Council of India, has a plan to certify these people who have required skills and competence for the profession that they are doing."

The intent behind certifying traditional community health practitioners is to validate their practices and increase their income, the second official said. Both the officials declined to be identified.

India faces a shortage of physicians practising modern medicine, and counts on practitioners of alternative medicine to bridge the gap, particularly in remote areas. Earlier this year, the government informed the Lok Sabha that while India had only about 1.3 million allopathic physicians including traditional medicine practitioners, the country’s doctor-population ratio was 1:834, better than the World Health Organization’s standard of 1:1,000.