Over two lakh doctors across Maharashtra are on a 24-hour token strike since Thursday 8 am to protest the state medical council’s decision permitting homeopathy practitioners to register after completing a short-term pharmacology course.
In a statement issued on Thursday evening, the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) said their delegation met Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) Member of Parliament (MP) Supriya Sule, Maharashtra Minister Ashish Shelar, and the Principal Secretary of Medical Education, pressing for the immediate withdrawal of the Maharashtra Medical Council’s (MMC) September 11 notification.
MMC is the official regulatory body for medical professionals in Maharashtra, tasked with overseeing registration and ensuring ethical conduct.
The association stated that while emergency services remain functional during the strike, routine outpatient departments (OPDs) in government hospitals across the state have been suspended for the day.
MARD warned that the strike could escalate if the government does not revoke the order within a week.
“We urge the Government to initiate the necessary action within the next seven days, or we may have no other option than to escalate the protest. Updates will be shared by the Central MARD Committee,” the statement said.
The strike, called jointly by MARD, the Association of State Medical Interns (ASMI), Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Federation of All India Medical Associations (FAIMA), is aimed at opposing the inclusion of homeopathy practitioners in the MMC register. The bodies said the decision “threatens patient safety and undermines allopathic standards.”
Earlier this year, the state government had asked the MMC to register homoeopaths who completed the one-year Certificate Course in Modern Pharmacology (CCMP), enabling them to prescribe allopathic medicines in select cases.
The move was withdrawn after members of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Maharashtra, who had threatened to strike on July 11, met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and flagged concerns about possible confusion among patients.
However, the government revived the process with a fresh resolution issued on September 5, prompting strong opposition from allopathic practitioners and leading to Wednesday’s 24-hour strike.
In a letter to the CM, the IMA Maharashtra unit had expressed concerns that allowing “inadequately trained” homoeopaths to treat patients may lead to misdiagnosis, adverse drug reactions, and increased antibiotic resistance, particularly in rural areas.
(With PTI inputs)
