Mumbai: In a sudden U-turn, the medical education department on Thursday withdrew its freeze on homeopathic registrations with the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC). The department had paused the registrations on August 18, pending the final court order, taking into account the medical community’s concerns of danger to public health.These registrations allow homeopaths to start prescribing complex modern medicines based on a one-year certificate course in pharmacology. The recent letter refers to the minutes of the meeting held on July 28 as the grounds for cancelling the earlier letter; however, neither the doctors’ associations nor the MMC had received these minutes at the time of going to press.“There was no need for fresh directives on 18th [August] as already directions were with MMC as per 28th July meeting. The above letter was issued without the approval of the secretary and it caused more confusion,” medical education secretary Dhiraj Kumar said.An official at the MMC said, “We are frustrated by this issue now. Either people are coming to our offices and protesting, or there is some new diktat that keeps changing. An issue of this scale has never happened before.”Another official said the council is liable to resume the registrations. These have been on hold since August 4, due to a technical glitch, after Mankhurd-based homeopath with the one-year Certificate Course in Modern Pharmacology (CCMP) was the first to be granted registrations.Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) president Dr Atharva Shinde said that as the court had asked them to withdraw their strike in a suo motu hearing and is analysing whether doctors can strike in the first place, the association at the moment is left feeling “toothless”. He said in a statement: “Central MARD committee will meet shortly to deliberate upon the government’s latest decision and decide the further democratic and lawful course of protest or action.”The issue dates to a GR issued on August 3 which had ordered MMC to start such homeopathic registrations. This had resulted in a strike by doctors, particularly MARD.(With inputs by Malathy Iyer)
