Mass awareness on Traditional Siddha Medicine

Doordarshan Chennai Kendra is planning a 'Public awareness campaign' on health in its weekdays morning telecast. As part of the campaign they also propose to include AYUSH once a week. The Secretary of CTMR, Dr.T.Thirunarayanan would participate in the discussions and share the traditional medicine approach for healthy lifestyle. Topics would cover- the basic concepts, daily regimen for healthy living, health food, managing common ailments, Lifestyle disrders, safety issues in traditional medicines, various therapies  etc. CTMR so far was conducting Public awareness programmes for select target groups. This will enable reaching a large tamil speaking TV viewers and help dispel many myths about Siddha Medicine.

CTMR starts project to train Siddha practitioners to decode ancient palm leaf manuscripts

As part of its efforts for innovation and researches in the Indian System of Medicines, the Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research (CTMR), Chennai has now engaged in a new mission to train the professionals of Siddha system to imbibe information from old palm leaf manuscripts that contain Siddha methods of treatment and disease management. Recently the Centre has envisaged a project for digitizing the available Siddha palm leaf manuscripts with it, and got the go-ahead approval from the central Ayush department with financial support. To serve as a prelude to the digitization work, the Centre has designed a workshop to train the institutionally trained physicians and the indigenous practitioners decode the medical manuscripts, the treasure trove of Siddha system. The programme was kick-started in Chennai in last week with a participation of practitioners from hospitals, medical colleges, universities and from forum of traditional healers. According to the organizers of the programme, Tamil Nadu has a very good collection of palm leaf manuscripts written in ancient Tamil and in Sanskrit. CTMR will train the participants to read, decode and transliterate the contents, which will help enhance their knowledge and can preserve for the future generation, said Dr T Thirunarayanan, the secretary of the Centre. “Among Asian countries, India has the largest number of palm leaf manuscripts and Tamil Nadu is said to have a lion portion of them. Majority of them contains medical knowledge. If they cannot be properly preserved, they will completely get ruined as the maximum life span of the dried leaves is 300 years, however careful preservation can extend the period to a little more. Only a small part of the treasure trove of information on siddha was published in printed materials so far. It is a challenge to preserve and retrieve all these information,” Dr Thirunarayanan explained. He said CTMR has collected more than 250 manuscripts which were considered to be originated in the 16 th century, and most them are in perilous conditions. The written palm leafs were preserved by various indigenous healers spread across the state, and they  contain information on disease classification, diagnostic methods, healthy life style, drug formulations and processing methods of herbo-mineral drugs. There are some leafs which deal with age old mantras and tantras (hymns and strategies). He further added that the purpose of preservation and digitization would be served when people were trained in decoding the scripts because the number of learned men was dwindling. For the participation in the workshop, CTMR has selected 13 post graduate students in Siddha, four Siddha physicians and four indigenous healers, and made them capable of reading and decoding the manuscripts. The training contained basic language skill, ancient grammar, different types of scripts, and numerals. The secretary of CTMR said the Centre is planning to publish a set of books based on Siddha medical manuscripts. Vidwan Sironmani, N Srinivasan, Vaidya S Usman Ali, Dr S Rajkumar and Prof. N Aranamuruval of the Central Classical Tamil Institute took lessons on reading and decoding of manuscripts.

Govt Siddha Medical College at Palayamkottai - Do not know, what to say

Shortage of medicines, faculties & infrastructure paralyzes Govt Siddha Medical College at Palayamkottai

Peethaambaran Kunnathoor, Chennai Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 08:00 Hrs  [IST]

Even as the Madras High Court has given permission to the Government Siddha Medical College at Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli district to commence classes for the current academic year, shortage of faculties, infrastructure and medicines ails the healthcare institution located in the  southern part of Tamil Nadu. The court on Monday issued order to conduct classes for the current academic year quashing the closure order given by the Ayush department last year on the basis of an inspection report submitted by the Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM). The Ayush department had cancelled recognition of two ISM Medical Colleges in Tamil Nadu, another being Government Ayurveda Medical College at Kottar in Kanyakumari district for non-compliance of minimum facilities and standards. Since the Ayush department denied permission to commence classes for fresh admissions in November last year, one hundred fresh students of BSMS and 60 students of PG courses approached the court, in addition to an indefinite strike they staged before the college. The court verdict came on the 38th day of the agitation. However, the hospital's problems go far beyond the academic issues. Seventy per cent of the total requirement of faculty members is lying vacant. The college is hiring retired teachers on contract basis to run the show. PG students of the college complain that the departments of General Medicine, Special Medicine, Paediatrics, Pharmacology, Pathology and Toxicology are struggling due to the shortage of teaching staff. According to them, each department should have a faculty strength of minimum 9 teachers, but the college has only 2 or three teachers in each department. For teaching modern medicine papers like general medicine, pharmacology, paediatrics, toxicology etc., all the PG students are depending on tuition classes in various places. In the case of medicines, there is no cure for the shortage of essential and routine drugs in the pharmacy, complains the students of MD in Siddha who are assigned to do the services in the OP wards. They said that as there is no supply of medicines, the flow of patients to the hospital is also decreasing which badly affects their study. Apart from book knowledge, the students are not getting practical experience in the medical college for want of patients. Most of the IP wards are lying vacant. Dr S Ravi Kumar and Dr Jeeva Gladys, PG students of the College told this reporter that the CCIM gave negative report to the Ayush department because of this grave situation prevailing at the college with regard to drugs and faculties. The college campus houses buildings of hospitals, colleges, hostels, pharmacy and drug production unit in a congested area of 3.8 acres of land. Apart from graduation and post graduation, courses of Diploma in Pharmacy and Diploma in Nursing are also conducted there. For all these courses altogether, around 1100 students are admitted into the college every year. According to the students, despite plenty of memorandums and agitations to the government, so far no positive step was taken by the state government.

List of Participants in the Training for Decoding Siddha Palm Manuscripts

The Following are the Short listed Trainees for the Training on Decoding Tamil Siddha Palm Manuscripts.
Kindly report at 9.30. A.M on 8th March 2012.
Venue ; CTMR 24, Anna Nagar Main Road, Puzhuthiwakkam, Near Vyasa School.

Sl No	Name	INSTTITUTE NAME
1	Dr.Radhika Madhavan	NIS , Chennai
2	Dr.T.Sathya Maheswari,	NIS , Chennai
3	Dr.V.Vikramkumar	NIS , Chennai
4	Dr.R.Suguna,	NIS , Chennai
5	Dr N.E.Ashokkumar	NIS , Chennai
6	Dr.S.Shanmuga Devi	NIS , Chennai
7	Vaidya. Subhanandan	Madurai
8	Vaidya. V.Ramaesh	Vellore
9	Vaidya. Amarnath	Gudiyatham
10	Vaidya. John Christopher	Thisaiyan vilai
11	Dr. R. Sangeetha	CTMR
12	Dr. Thirumagal	CTMR- AMR trust Siddha Health centre,
13	Dr. S. Rajkumar	CTMR
14	Dr. R. Kalaiarasi	GSMC  Palayamkottai
15	Dr.R. Jeeva Gladys	GSMC  Palayamkottai
16	Dr.R. Vasanthi	GSMC  Palayamkottai
17	Dr . P. Ravikumar	GSMC  Palayamkottai
18	Dr. S.Thillaivanan	GSMC , Chennai
19	Dr. K. Samraj	GSMC , Chennai
20	Dr.G.G.Ramkumar	GSMC , Chennai