Niti Aayog Health Sector Reforms

New Delhi: Government think tank Niti Aayog is looking at many reform ideas in the health sector, including aligning traditional and modern approaches for a 'larger good', its member (health) V K Paul said on Sunday.

Paul said the government is committed to strengthening the traditional system of medicine (homeopathy and Ayurveda) as well as the modern system of medicine (allopathy).

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"It makes eminent logic that the best of traditional medicine and best of modern medicine therapies be brought together for a larger good of people and there are ways of practising integrated medicine," he told.

Paul pointed out that it has already happened to an extent, as yoga is now part of practice in several conditions like in hypertension.

"There is a scope to align these approaches for the larger benefit of society... as a think tank, we are looking at many reform ideas in the health sector, aligning traditional and modern approaches for a larger good," he said.

Integrative medicine is an approach that combines modern medicine with alternative systems like Ayurveda and yoga.

India's National Health Policy (NHP) also recognises the need for integrated courses for ISM (Indian systems of medicine), modern science and Ayurgenomics (a combination of Ayurveda with the study of all the genes of an organism, called genomics).

It also talks about getting AYUSH systems to contribute to 'meeting the national health goals and objectives through integrative practices'.

Recently, a meeting chaired by Paul was held to begin formulating the new system.

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