Maharashtra now lets homoeopaths prescribe modern medicine after a six-month course. Is that access, or is it a lower standard?

On 30 June 2026 the Maharashtra Medical Council notified that homoeopaths who complete a six-month Certificate Course in Modern Pharmacology may register with the MMC and prescribe modern medicine. Resident doctors struck over it on 5 August. The Bombay High Court ordered them back to work on 6 August, and the underlying petition is still pending.

The strike is over. The question is not.

The case made for it: rural India is desperately short of prescribers. A qualified homoeopath already present in an underserved district, with pharmacology training added, is better than no one. Several states have taken this route. Access delayed is care denied.

The case made against it: an MBBS is five and a half years including internship, and pharmacology sits inside a structure of pathology, medicine, and supervised clinical exposure. The argument is that a six-month certificate does not substitute for that structure — and that the patient at the receiving end never consented to a different standard of prescriber.

I hold a view on this. I am more interested in whether this assembly can produce something better than the shouting match this debate usually becomes.

So, specifically:

If you work in a district where CCMP-registered practitioners are already prescribing — what are you actually seeing? Referrals arriving appropriately, or arriving late? Prescribing patterns you'd consider safe or unsafe? Real observations, no patient-identifying details.

If you support the policy — say so here and make the case. This chamber is worth nothing if only one position is comfortable in it.

And the harder question for those of us who oppose it: if not this, then what? "Send more MBBS doctors to rural districts" has been the answer for forty years and the posts remain vacant. What would actually staff a PHC in Gadchiroli next year?

If we can only defend the standard without solving the shortage, we will keep losing this argument state by state.