The people’s campaign initiated under the Ardram Mission will help Kerala set a new model in public healthcare, Minister for Local Self-Government A. C. Moideen has said.
Launching the Ardram campaign here on Monday, Mr. Moideen said the Ardram Mission has succeeded in enriching and expanding the State’s healthcare system and also ensuring public support to achieve this target.
Sporting the motto ‘Our health, our responsibility,’ the two-year campaign is designed to encourage a shift to healthy living. Targetting changes in lifestyle, it promotes healthy food habits, adoption of an exercise regimen and envisions stepped-up awareness about the ill-effects of smoking, alcohol consumption and drug abuse.
A major concern in the LDF government’s Nava Keralam concept, a healthy society is also an issue related to development, Mr. Moideen said. “Development is not merely confined to roads and bridges. It also pertains to a realisation that the wealth of a land is the health of its people,” he said.
Recent news reports that certain Indian cities are now resorting to oxygen bars point to the growing importance of the health sector, Mr. Moideen said.Mr. Moideen presented a cheque of ₹25,000 to Nadakkal Bhadran, a student of Alphonsa Central School, Payyannur, who designed the logo for the campaign. The Minister also unveiled the logo.
‘Strengthen resistance’
The Ardram campaign is designed to strengthen resistance against diseases and reduce the number of patients, Health Minister K. K. Shylaja, who presided over the launch, said. The primary health centres are equipped for early detection of lifestyle diseases so that they can be treated, she said.
Food and Civil Supplies Minister P. Thilothaman, Water Resources Minister K. Krishnankutty and General Education Minister C. Raveendranath and Principal Secretary (Health) Rajan Khobragade spoke.
