CHENNAI : The State unit of the Indian Association of Physiotherapists has urged the Centre to constitute a National Council for Physiotherapy which would establish physiotherapy as an autonomous speciality.

According to the Association, the 15,000 plus physiotherapists across Tamil Nadu had little cause for cheer on International Physiotherapy Day being celebrated on Friday as the growth of the profession was being stifled by measures that sidelined its critical role in the allied health sciences.

The proposal for establishing a Council has been pending for over 25 years with the Government of India and any effort towards this was `thwarted by vested interests within the medical fraternity', Association office-bearers I. A. Jeyaprakash and B. S. Desikamani said.

The Council was yet to come into being despite a budgetary sanction of Rs. 5 lakh in 1989-90 or the subsequent formulation of the Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Council Draft Bill (1994), they said.

According to the Association, in 1996, physiotherapy was put under the Rehabilitation Council of India under Ministry of Social Welfare and later reverted to medicine after litigation launched by the Association. The Association leaders said the Para Medical and Physiotherapy Councils Bill 2004 was not finalised in consultation with physiotherapists and did not reflect their aspirations.

They hoped that that the amendments proposed by the Association would be incorporated into the Bill before it is introduced in Parliament.

The Association has also appealed to the Tamil Nadu Government to constitute State Council for Physiotherapy as the Delhi and Maharashtra Governments had done. The Government has also been urged to create more physiotherapy posts at the PHC-level to reach services to the rural areas.

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