International recognition for ayurveda is necessary for bringing hundreds of people into the State for its treatment, according to the Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan.
Inaugurating the new building for the District Ayurveda Hospital, he said that several doors of opportunities would open up if ayurveda hospitals are started in foreign countries.
The Government encourages all streams of medical treatment and is not partial to allopathy treatment, he said adding that Government gives special thrust to ayurveda treatment and its education.
Besides providing a special drugs control department for ayurveda, the Government had opened an ayurveda hospital in Malappuram, where this treatment was not available in the government sector. The Government has also taken special measures to check dubious centres that work as massage parlours under the guise of ayurveda.
Located at Kacheripady, the hospital building with 1,100 sq.m. area in the first phase of construction has two floors. The full-fledged hospital that would be completed in yet another two phases would provide 8,948 sq.m. area for the hospital. It would have 200 beds in the general ward and a hundred paywards of different scales. The hospital would also house a conference hall, guest rooms and the district medical office of the Indigenous System of Medicine.
The district panchayat had taken up the construction of the building in December 2006 and the work executed in the first phase cost Rs. 3 crore. The district panchyat president, P. S. Shyla, welcomed the gathering. Minister for Health, P. K. Sreemathy, presided. Several dignitaries, including, Minister for Fisheries and Registration, S. Sarma, Minister for Transport, Jose Thettayil, Mayor Mercy Williams, P. Rajeev, MP and Dominic Presentation, MLA, participated.
