LAHORE, Jan 9: The Punjab chapter of first-aid general practitioners welfare association (FGPWA) staged a demonstration and a sit-in in front of Lahore Press Club on Monday against a crackdown on, what they said, registered practitioners belonging to the alternative system of healthcare in the name of so-called anti-quackery campaign.
The office-bearers alleged the Punjab administration was registering criminal cases mostly against the registered gencral practitioners and arresting them daily. The action was being taken in haste, on the basis of unauthorised information and under the constant pressure exerted by Pakistan Medical Association, they said.
Scores of GPs including hakims, homeopaths, dispensers and lady health workers gathered under the banner of the FGPWA and demanded of the government to stop their 'financial murder.
Addressing the protesters, FGPWA Punjab President Dr Muhammad Nadeem Ashraf termed the recent anti-quackery campaign a part of conspiracy hatched by certain elements who wanted supremacy of allopathic system of cure and had been struggling for years for the purpose.
'Though it is too late, the world has now recognised the importance of different systems of medicines like Hikmat, Chinese, Tib-e-Unani, homoeopathy etc., as compared to allopathic system.
Citing examples of some researches and studies recently carried out by multinational medicine companies on traditional herbal treatment, he said some herbal medicines were less toxic having no serious side effects as compared to the modern allopathic drugs.
Ironically, Dr Ashraf said, the allopathic system had influence over the entire healthcare system as the successive governments had been patronising it by allocating hefty funds every year.
At the same time not a single allocation was ever made for the other alternative systems of medicines at the government level. Instead of bringing these systems under the administrative control, various governments created doubtful and hateful image of hakims and homeopaths.
He said the number of general practitioners all over the province was many times more than those providing healthcare under allopathic system. 'The Punjab government can utilise their services at far-flung areas like dispensaries, basic health units, rural health centres, district headquarters hospitals by conducting four-year refresher courses.
He said the government could also overcome the infectious diseases and achieve the goal of immunisation by imparting them training and through refresher courses as LHWs were already rendering such services.