The Hindu 07.02.2014
Civic body to seek opinion on traditional healing
The critical observations made in the local fund audit against the district panchayat for appointing a “traditional healer” to provide medical care to children affected with autism has prompted the civic body to seek the opinion of a medical panel to find the effectiveness of the treatment.
In the year 2007, the panchayat on its own roped in a Palaghat based person, who runs a private traditional healing centre there, to provide traditional medicines to children with autism.
Centre opened
A centre was opened at Venganoor where the “traditional healer” makes routine visits after collecting herbal medicines from the tribal villages of Agali, Sholayur and Pudur.
The budgetary allocation for the programme had gone up from Rs 10 lakh in the initial period to Rs 20 lakh in the current fiscal.
In the local fund audit for the year 2012-13, the auditors sought to know from the authorities on the criteria for selecting the practitioner, whether the firm floated by him has been recognised by the medical council and registered with the Travancore Cochin Medical Council.
An official with the district panchayat told The Hindu that the practitioner has not registered with the Travancore Cochin Medical Council and there was no scientific proof to show the utility of the medicine administered to the children.
However, he said the civic body has decided to continue with the programme as some of the parents of the autism affected children gave positive feedback.
President of the district panchayat Ansajitha Ressal said, “after the audit report, we wanted to shutdown the centre. But a few parents wanted the treatment to continue. We have received a mixed response. Now we are planning to appoint a panel of government doctors, including ENT specialists and neurologists to evaluate the children. The drugs controller will be asked to test the herbal medicine administered to the children. The payment made to the practitioner, an official said was purely based on the requirement made by him and there was no scientific parameter adopted in paying for the service provided by him.”
“We need to have a re-look on the payment side too,” Ms. Ressel said.
