Tiruvannamalai, Salem top in quackery menace

“As awareness is low in the backward areas, some people take it as an opportunity to make a few bucks. When fever cases are suddenly high, it is when quackery is found to be higher than usual,” said Dr K Kolandaisamy, Director, Department of Public Health. 

While quackery is found to be a serious issue, the World Health Organisation had in its report on ‘Health Workforce in India’ claimed that 57 per cent of allopathy doctors in India do not have medical qualifications. “Over the course of time, we have noticed a trend in the cases. Most quacks have been identified as persons with a basic knowledge of medicines. We have also noticed that some of them may have had parents who were quacks,” Dr Kolandaisamy added. 

While 253 cases had been recorded in 2017 (up till October) a total of 145 cases were registered in 2016. “There have been a number of instances wherein we have received complaints from persons on the existence of abortion centres. Following the tip off, we have conducted raids and got the clinics shut down. While our job is to conduct raids and inform the police, it is the responsibility of police to arrest them. While many have been arrested, they are let out on bail,” said M Kamalakannan from the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS). 

Stating that the main issue is the doctors’ focus on medicine alone, Dr Kolandaisamy said, we need to start focussing on social medicine instead.

Hundreds of quacks were identified in Tamil Nadu when health officials conducted a massive crackdown during the last few months in 2017. Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar also confirmed the drive against quacks at that time. He also said that quackery was found to be higher than usual when fever cases were high. In fact, the menace of quacks reached alarming proportions when dengue was rampant across the state. Besides deaths due to the killer fever, quacks wrong prescription of medicines also added to the fatality rate. Following this, the government conducted raids in a number of northern districts and some areas which reported high number of dengue cases to curb the menace.