The Union Ministry of Ayush has
approved a proposal by the Punjab government to set up a de-addiction centre at
the Ayurvedic government hospital, Amritsar, the first of its kind in the public
sector.
The union government aims to set up
more similar de-addiction centres in other parts of the country upon success of
the pilot project.
While the de-addiction treatment
under modern medicine involves medications such as methadone, buprenorphine or
naltrexone, which can have adverse effects on the body, the Ayurvedic treatment
poses no side effects.
“We’ve already held a series of
talks with the state government to work out the modalities. A team of doctors
headed by Dr Rakesh Sharma, Director, Ayurveda (Punjab), has prepared a
treatment protocol for which sanction has been accorded after close scrutiny. A
grant of Rs 1.5 crorehas been allotted for the project,” a top Ayush official
was quoted as saying.
As per the protocol, a patient will
be admitted to the centre for nearly three months when he/she will be
administered with Ayurvedic medicines and therapies like Panchkarma. Besides
they will be provided with Yoga, meditation and councelling sessions.
The individual treatment plan will be
determined after diagnosis by physicians based on symptoms such as
hallucinations (arupanaamstamdarshnam), thirst (trishna), body aches (sharirdukha),
anorexia (aruchi), insomnia (prajagr) and delirium (sammoh) among others.
The medicines will be provided free
of cost to the patients and the expense will be met by the state government.
Meanwhile, the ministry has also
given nod for opening Health and Wellness centres in 117 Ayurvedic dispensaries
in the state. This includes centres specialising in mother and child
healthcare, anaemia, respiratory diseases and skin diseases among others.
