Make Ayurvedic and Siddha Medicines Affordable for All

What Turns People Away From Indian Traditional Medicine
High costs of medicines, unfriendly attitude of practitioners and insufficient documentation and poor publicity are preventing people from getting the full benefits of Indian traditional medicine such as Ayurveda and Siddha.
While in the country of origin, India these medical services are readily available cheaply for the poor with every village having its own vaidyar although the infiltration of modern lifestyle and negative publicity is eroding people’s confidence in the vaidyars’.
This problem has been rectified with the Government and leading universities in India offering professional courses in Indian traditional medicine and certain organisations who are helping to rediscover ancient remedies and have set up established medical centres to popularise them among the public.
These trained traditional medical doctors and the service of the medical centres have reached the shores of Malaysia but they are beyond the reach of the poor having fallen into the hands of profit mongers.
A visit to a Malaysian Ayurvedic centre for instance can cost patients several thousands of ringgit even though the prescribed medicines are not costly to produce being sourced from ordinary kitchen spices and common herbs.
The consultation fees charged by these organisations are also expensive similar to that of allopathy or modern doctors.
Therefore the poor for whom the traditional medicines were originally produced are being deprived of its use by these profit orientated organisations. Only rich Malaysians are deriving the benefits of this medical system.
The only option left for poor Malaysians to benefit from traditional Indian medicine is to take a trip to India. It is hoped that the Malaysian government can help regulate traditional Indian medical centres and stop unfair price hiking of medicines.
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