The eminent Dr. Amarsinh D Nikam MD(Hom) is interviewed by Ashok RajGuru
Dr. Amar Sinha Nikam
Dr.
Amarsinh D Nikam established the Aditya Homeopathic Hospital and
Healing Centre in 1994 in Pune, India. It is full-fledged private
hospital offering only homeopathic treatment. Today it is an 80-bed
facility, with a waiting-list of patients seeking admission for
treatment.
The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital
(RLHH) was founded in 1849 by Dr. Frederick Foster Quin, the first
homeopath in England, and a pupil of Dr Samuel Hahnemann. Sadly, a
hundred and sixty one years later, in the year 2010 it closed down, or
rather lost its unique identity as a “Homeopathic Hospital”. One reason
cited for its sad demise was the fact that the last Director, the
illustrious Dr. Anthony Campbell, was convinced that Homeopathy was
“just another form of counselling” and was skeptical of all the “deluded
claims” homeopaths made about the efficacy of Homeopathy [1]. The
following interview will convince the reader that shortcomings in
leadership and practical skills must have led to the demise of the RLHH,
not the weakness of Homeopathy.
In stark contrast to this line of
thinking, one Homeopath in India, Dr. Amarsinh D Nikam, had the
gumption, or rather the audacity to put on stake all his earnings and
reputation to start the first full-fledged private hospital offering
only
homeopathic treatment. The Aditya Homeopathic Hospital and Healing
Centre was established in 1994 in Pune, India. Today it is an 80-bed
facility, with a waiting-list of patients seeking admission for
treatment. This interviewer wanted to find out what a “
homeopathy only”
hospital was, and sought to interview the founder, Dr. AD Nikam. Dr.
Nikam was gracious enough to grant a two hour slot on a Sunday morning.
What
followed was a very spirited discussion that was very illuminating.
What made the interview so conversational and interesting was the fact
that while both the interviewer and the interviewee are fluent in
English, they are also native speakers of the Marathi language (which is
their Mother tongue), and both love the poetic Urdu language, in which
Dr. Nikam is wont to compose and recite couplets impromptu! Indeed, Dr.
Nikam comes across as a man of many parts – doctor, entrepreneur,
author, animal lover, teacher, social worker, film producer and most of
all a compassionate human being.
AR: Dr. Nikam, I wish to thank you for granting me this interview on behalf of Hpathy.
Dr. ADN: It is my pleasure to welcome you to my Hospital and I shall be happy to answer your questions.
AR: Can you briefly tell us about the concept of a Homeopathic Hospital?
Dr. ADN:
Well, you have many hospitals that boast of having Homeopathic
consultants on their panel of consultants. These Homeopaths are doing an
excellent job in helping patients with many chronic conditions. But
they work during fixed hours. Once their clinic hours are over, they
“pull their shutters down” and go home. From my early days as a student,
I felt, Homeopathy should offer a full-fledged hospital that admits and
treats patients by homeopathy alone, on a 24 X 7 X 365 basis, even in
cases of emergency – just like any hospital.
AR: You mean to say that your hospital provides treatment to emergency cases as well? Can you give an example?
Dr. ADN:
I am sure you understand there can be no greater medical emergency than
a cardiac emergency, where every moment counts. Our hospital deals with
every type of case, be it acute pericarditis, cardiac myopathy,
endocarditis, myocardial infarction, acute renal failure, acute
appendicitis – every conceivable condition that would require immediate
medical attention and admission to a hospital. Also, we deal with
Multiple Sclerosis, trigeminal neuralgia, psoriasis, brain tumors and
many such conditions for which a patient may not find much help in a
General Hospital or a Specialty Unit. Our hospital has an ambulance so
that patients do not lose time reaching us. So far more than 3,000
critical cardiac cases have been successfully treated here. In my book
Homeopathic Hospital? Yes! [2],
I have presented typical cases that are admitted and treated at the
hospital routinely. In all cases we have demonstrated the efficacy of
homeopathy not only on the basis of a “feel good” sensation reported by
the patient, but also with the support of diagnostic tests and clinical
parameters.
AR: That is very
interesting, because people never associate homeopathy with emergency
care. So, do you mean to say you don’t use any injections, pain killers
etc?
Dr. ADN: Absolutely. In our hospital
we use no injections, intravenous saline transfusions and other things
that people take for granted in a hospital ward. But that does not mean
we are primitive. We take advantage of all state-of-the-art diagnostic
tools to understand the pathology and progress of disease. We even
monitor patients on CCTV to understand symptoms, modalities and
peculiarities that may not be evident in a case-taking session.
AR:
That is amazing! I would like to know how it all began. Tell us
something about your childhood days and how you became a Homeopath.
Dr. ADN:
Well, I come from a family of medical practitioners. My grandfather,
Dr. Vitthal Nikam was an Ayurvedic physician and my father, Dr.
Dattatraya Nikam was a Homeopath. When I was a young lad, I used to play
with my friends barefoot, and we would stray into bushes and brambles
while playing hide-and-seek. Very often our soles would bleed when
thorns would pierce the soles of our feet. One day, a particularly sharp
and big thorn pierced my foot and I was in deep pain. My friends
carried me to my father’s clinic which was nearby. I was in terrible
pain and I asked my father whether it would pain even more when he
pulled the thorn out? I pleaded, “Wasn’t there a medicine that could
push the thorn out automatically?” He just smiled and gave me some
sugary pills and told me to go home. By the time I climbed down the
stairs of the clinic, I realized the thorn was gone and so was the pain!
That night I decided that I too wanted to be a doctor who would treat
patients without pain or harm.
