To ease the burden and meet scarcity of allopathic medical professionals, the Government has roped in AYUSH doctors for providing consultation on the eSanjeevini OPD platform, a free health service portal launched by the Union Health Ministry with an aim to provide better healthcare services to patients in their homes.
It has been observed that there has been a resurgence in the demand of Ayush healthcare system, which has increased exponentially in the current period. Accordingly the Centre has decided to rope in AYUSH doctors from Ayush institutes of the country for free consultation on this portal, said Dr Anupam Srivastava, Director of Rashtriya Ayurveda Vidyapeeth (RAV).
An autonomous organization under the Ministry of Ayush, has been assigned with the responsibility as a nodal agency to coordinate the programme which includes induction training of doctors too on the portal.
Dr Srivastava said, “We are witnessing an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases and this rise has also affected the doctors and other frontline health workers in a big way. AYUSH doctors are helping in easing the burden and meeting the demands of scarcity in a big way.
We all know that Ayurveda and other AYUSH systems of medicines have played a very crucial role during the Covid-19 pandemic for the last two years and a larger section of the society got benefitted through it, he added.
In fact, the AYUSH Ministry has also operationalised a dedicated community support pan-India helpline to provide AYUSH-based approaches and solutions for the people grappling with Covid-19. Encouraged by the positive results of alternate traditional medicines in fight against Covid-19, the Centre has asked the Union Health Ministry to integrate the Ministry of AYUSH to multiply resources in the fight against the pandemic, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had also recently informed.
The AYUSH department has also launched an ayurvedic kit - "Ayuraksha Kit' - comprising Chyavanprash, Sanshmani Vati, Anu Tail and Ayush kadha - to improve the immunity of people and keep them healthy.
The Minister said that the time tested AYUSH systems have many evidence-based interventions for the management and treatment of Covid-19. India's AYUSH has reported tremendous growth in the last few years because of growing global and domestic demand, enabled by research and development in the sector. According to a report from the Ministry, with a turnover of $18.1 billion, the market size of the Indian AYUSH industry, as a whole, has grown by 17 per cent during 2014-2020.