The ministries of health and Ayush are in talks to develop protocols where the two systems could be combined to offer treatment for certain diseases at both government and private health centres and hospitals.

“Ayush and modern medicines need to completement each other in treatments. This is the goal of the government and we are working very rapidly towards that,” health secretary Sudhansh Pant told Mint.

It wasn’t immediately clear if patients would have a choice in the treatment options offered.

At present the protocols followed in use of modern medicines and those by the traditional system of medicines are completely different and there is no complementary approach.

Ayush centres in prestigious health care institution like AIIMS (in all 22 new and old AIIMS) work as different units and patients are guided separately on treatment.

“During covid, we took steps for the very first time to keep Ayush and modern medicine protocol in same document but the protocols themselves were different. We want to build integration now,” Pant said.

Modern medicine system is administered at the Central level by the ministry of health and family welfare while traditional system of medicine is looked by ministry of Ayush.

Ayush is also developing research-based treatment systems and proposes to take Bureau of Indian Standard and ISO certifications for its medicines.

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Updated: 03 Dec 2023, 10:21 PM IST