The Minster of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry AYUSH, Shripad Yesso Naik has said that the Government is taking the AYUSH system of medicines to the grass root through the network of Primary Health Centers (PHCs) under the National AYUSH Mission (NAM).
While interacting with journalists at the Women’s Press Club in New Delhi on August 14, Shripad Yesso Naik disclosed that the AYUSH Ministry is setting up an All India Institute of Ayurveda in Delhi, which is conceived as an Apex Institute of Ayurveda along the lines of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). It is expected to start working by 2016 and it is the vision of the Government to have such hospitals in every state, he added.
Yesso Naik further said that it is the mission of the Government that there should be an AYUSH Hospital in every district. Steps have been taken by the Ministry in this direction and proposals are being received from the states.
Highlighting the importance of research in the field of AYUSH, Shripad Yesso Naik said that the status of the AYUSH formulations should be clinically clear to promote them as medicines which will also help to increase their popularity outside India. The Minster said that there has to be an integrated approach to Allopathy and AYUSH systems of medicine. It is for this reason that the AYUSH facility will be provided in each of the upcoming AIIMS hospitals in different states. This integrated approach has already been adopted by some of the big private hospitals in the states, he said.
The Minister said that there are one lakh doctors of AYUSH in the country whose services can be used to supplement the existing facilities in the Primary Health Centres where there is a shortage of doctors. Shripad Yesso Naik disclosed that he has written to the Prime Minister in this regard.