SHILLONG: The Quality Council of India (QCI), as the apex quality facilitation body set up by Central Government, has launched a Voluntary Certification Scheme for what is now being called the Traditional Community Healthcare Providers (TCHP), taking cue from the expression used in the National Health Policy, to certify the knowledge and skills of the traditional healers.
In a statement, Dr.Debjani Roy, Advisor,QCI, New Delhi, said a large part of India is serviced by traditional healers, who rely on local health practices using medicinal plants and herbs in treating patients for various illnesses.
“There are an estimated 1 million traditional healers in the country but there is no formal recognition for such traditional healers”, she said.
The Centre wanted all the state governments to think about utilising their knowledge and skills like Sikkim which has laid the foundation stone of a folk healing centre; there is the North East Institute of Folk Medicine (NEIFM) in Passighat, Arunachal Pradesh under the Ministry of AYUSH (with whom QCI will be signing an MoU (memorandum of understanding) shortly to certify 200 traditional healers from the North eastern states) and the Chhattisgarh government in recognition of the valuable service being provided by the traditional healers, specially for rural healthcare.
During the recent 3rd National Ayurveda Day celebration held in Shillong. Health Minister A L Hek stressed on the need of bringing the traditional healers under the organised sector.
The framework for certification was designed following the International norms as per ISO 17024 for Personnel Certification and the framework for the Third Party Certification.
During pilot testing phase, rapid baseline village survey was conducted in the selected district of each of the eight states for project implementation like Dang district in Gujarat, Udaipur district in Rajasthan, Korba district in Chhattisgarh, Mayurbhanj district in Odisha, Vellore district in Tamil Nadu, Shimoga district in Karnataka, East Siang district in Arunachal Pradesh and West Khasi Hills in Meghalaya.
The rapid baseline village survey data analysis helped in selecting the most common streams of traditional healthcare practices and the development of their Minimum Standard of Competence (MSC).
