Aluminium utensils cause of kidney diseases in NCP

BULNEWA: Experiments have proved that cooking in aluminium utensils is one of the reasons for the prevalence of kidney diseases among people in the North Central Province, Indigenous Medicine Minister Tissa Karaliyadda said.

The Indigenous Ministry has drawn up plans to distribute clay pots and pans among North Central Province households to encourage cooking in clay pots, the Minister said. He was speaking after opening a new Hela Weda Gedara under the ministry’s Hela Weda Punaruda programme at Bulnewa, Lolugaswewa.

This Hela Weda Gedara (Ayurveda hospital) built at a cost of Rs. 1 million at the premises of traditional physician E. W. Tennakoon can accommodate 10 indoor patients at a time.

The Minister said other causes for the heavy incidence of kidney disease were the excessive fluoride content in drinking water, liquor habit and use of artificial manure and insecticides for agriculture.

He said herbal farms would also be introduced in all 4,000 villages developed under the Gama Neguma programme in the North Central Province.

The Indigenous Medicine ministry has planned to recruit 600 new Ayurveda physicians to improve the indigenous health sector. This is the first time in the country’s history that such a large number of physicians are recruited at a given moment, Karaliyadda said.

The Minister said the opening of this facility proved that the Government was taking steps to ensure services needed by the people notwithstanding obstructions caused by certain trade unions.

Karaliyadda said developed countries too had their endemic traditional healing systems which had gone to oblivion with scientific advancement.

Sri Lanka too had its own traditional and indigenous medicine system which had been neglected with the passage of time. It was to revive and develop this system that his ministry had taken steps to build Hela Weda Gedara clinics for traditional physicians to enable them hand down their practice to their children, the Minister said.