State to focus more on lifestyle diseases: Veena

To rope in family health centres for focussed interventions

The State will focus on reducing the morbidity and mortality due to lifestyle diseases through focussed interventions, which will be carried out through the family health centres, Health Minister Veena George, said in the Assembly here on Tuesday.

Replying to the discussions on demand for grants for Medical, Public Health and Family Welfare in the revised Budget for the financial year 2021, she said that with 60% of the annual mortality in the State directly or indirectly linked to lifestyle diseases, it was important that this challenge is addressed with utmost importance.

She said that the care and follow-up of individuals with various non-communicable diseases would be ensured with the help of e-health by giving a unique identity number to every patient.

The functioning of institutions such as the Indian Institute of Diabetes would be strengthened

Ms. George said that the government was giving special attention to the decentralisation of cancer care, to district and medial college hospitals so that patients need not always depend on the Regional Cancer Centre. Attention would be focussed on early cancer detection and care.

She added that the State intended to do proper research on breast cancer and thyroid cancer, the incidence of which seemed to be growing in the State.

Ms. George said that the Government would soon initiate research studies on the nature and prevalence of various cancers in the State for which patients were seeking care in both private and public hospitals

She also detailed the infrastructure developments in the State’s health sector, which were being carried out with the help of KIIFB and the massive changes in public health system delivery and quality care, which had been ushered in through Aardram Mission in the past five years.

Ms. George also defended the State’s COVID management strategy, which, she said, had focussed on spreading out the epidemic curve so that the health system capacity was never affected. She said that cases continued to rise in Kerala because of the large proportion of susceptible population in the State who were yet to be exposed to the virus.