Editorial : The best medicine for the people

With more than five million Sri Lankans known to be suffering from diabetes and a staggering 15% of them being children under the age of sixteen, the Government needs to act urgently in working out and effectively implementing a national health policy.

In terms of this policy an equal place needs to be given to different forms of preventive and curative medicine. These include allopathy or western medicine as it is commonly known, the time-tested and time-honoured Ayurveda, homoeopathy and acupuncture.

On a three-hour television talk show on Tuesday, a widely-known and widely-respected ayurvedic specialist in Kandalama said he had cured hundreds of patients suffering from kidney failure, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or high cholesterol and other ailments such as viral influenza with coughs and colds.

The Viharadipathi (chief priest) of the area, a school principal and other prominent figures supported the plea of the ayurvedic specialist that more people should turn to Ayurveda which is known to be more effective and has little or no side effects. This is in contrast to western medicine with its lists of medicinal drugs, various tests which cost thousands of rupees and other heavy charges which have brought about a crisis where health care expenses amount to about 25% of the family income.
Hundreds of patients come to this Kandalama ayurvedic physician every day and he works from early morning till late at night because he considers his work as a service and not a profession or a business as a large section of the private health sector has become.

During the past few years tens of thousands of farmers, mainly in the North-Central Province have been seriously affected by a chronic kidney epidemic of unknown origin. Reports say some 22,000 farmers have died while thousands have been forced to undergo the agonising dialysis though the main hospitals in the province do not have the required number of medical specialists or the technological resources to handle this crisis. The Kandalama ayurvedic specialist says there are ayurvedic cures for many such kidney ailments. It is the duty of the Government to make the people aware that Ayurveda – which thrived in this country for thousands of years before western medicine took over – has an effective and affordable cure for most ailments. Such awareness or education programmes need to be conducted more regularly through the Government media – television, radio and newspapers - instead of the ruling party propaganda which is not only extensive but often crude and vulgar. That is why most independent analysts believe we no longer have a state media now but a government media which are propaganda organs for the ruling UPFA and that too is being done at a heavy cost in public funds.

An annual budgetary allocation of more than 90 billion rupees is made to the Health Ministry to run more than 600 public hospitals and medical clinics, pay the salaries of some 15,000 medical officers, 30,000 nurses and thousands of other para-medical and health administration officials. This allocation needs to be maintained or increased while the allocation for the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine could be even doubled by drastically cutting down on the extravagant privileges and perks given to politicians from top to bottom.

The Government also needs to make the people aware of how they could get safe and good quality Sri Lankan food and nutrition at affordable prices. People need to be made aware how trans-national companies are trying to increase the sales of their genetically-modified fruits, though the side effects of these are unpredictably dangerous. The latest thrust of the TNCs is to promote what they call fortified rice, which means adding synthetic chemicals and vitamins that could  have poisonous consequences. Unfortunately even institutions like the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka appear to be supporting this so-called fortified rice, and the Government needs to ask such bodies whether our ancient farmers turned Sri Lanka into the rice bowl of Asia by using fortified rice concocted by foreign companies.