Health Watch

Colourful, but cancerous!

Nadira Gunatilleke

Recently Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena gave power to all Food Inspectors to inspect food available anywhere in the country in order to prevent traders from adding cancerous chemicals to coloured food. He did so because the food inspectors attached to the Health Ministry detected many artificially coloured foods with Carcinogen, a cancerous substance.

Recently, the food inspectors detected rice called Rosa Samba which does not exist anywhere in the world. There is no variety of rice called Rosa Samba (Pink Samba) anywhere in the world. No colour can be added to any type of rice under the relevant rules and regulations. Traders add dangerous varieties of artificial dye to rice in order to turn white rice to red rice because the demand for red rice has gone up rapidly.

Doctors recommend red rice for persons suffering from some Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes or high blood pressure and red rice is one of the most popular healthy foods recommended by almost all health and medical professionals. People eat more rice than earlier because of our high and quality rice production and the popular negative impacts on health caused by wheat flour.

The Food Inspectors detected many food items with dangerous artificial colours which include Carcinogens. Those food items are rice, meat, beef, spices and others. The dangerous artificial colours darken the natural colours of fresh food and such artificial colours also help show outdated food more fresh and attractive, especially meat and beef. The traders add dangerous artificial colours made out of chemicals which contain Carcinogens in order to make a higher profit. But such food cause cancer in people. The most pathetic situation is that people are not aware of this and there is no way for them to check it. Traders do this dangerous act even though healthy and approved food colours are available in the country for them to use.

Food Inspectors have all the powers now to inspect food available anywhere in the country. Earlier they had assigned to inspect limited areas and divisions in the country.

But now they are free to serve in any part of the country and detect unsafe and unhealthy food at any time from anywhere. Annually around 15,000 new cancer patients are being detected from Sri Lanka and the Government spends over 3,500 million to treat them.

Most of the cancer patients turn up for detection and treatment after reaching incurable stage. Therefore, we have to be careful about what we eat in order to prevent dangerous and incurable diseases such as cancer.

Here comes the members of the general public of our country who eat anything that looks attractive and tasty even if they cause cancer or more dangerous health complications! Nowadays Sri Lankan housewives do not bother to make spices themselves. It is because they are busy with employment and other house work. They just go out and buy all spices they need from shops. But such products may contain Carcinogen, the cancerous substance and there is no way for them to check it before buying. It is the same when it comes to other food stuff such as meat, beef and cool drinks. But consumers do not have a way to find out whether they buy a quality product or not. Therefore consumers should be vigilant on the vibrant colours of food items.

You can smell the food product and sense the quality of the food. Sometimes food loses its natural smell when artificial substances are added to them. Diluting food in water can be another simple method to test the quality of colours thats added to them. But none of those methods give any assurance to the consumer about the quality of the colours that had been added to the food. All the people are being forced to use certain food items such as spices, rice and dhal but people can very easily avoid food stuff such as artificial cool drinks, Beema Packet, low quality ice cream, meat and beef because people do not starve to death without such food.

Lanka Hospitals Nursing School:

Celebrating nine years of achievements

Having enhanced the scope of healthcare in Sri Lanka, Lanka Hospitals has taken it upon itself to ensure that each aspect of the hospital’s operations is taken a step forward at every juncture. A major aspect of this quality assurance is the guarantee of high quality medical care to each patient.

To this end, Lanka Hospitals Nurses Training School boasts the highest quality training equipment and facilities, guaranteeing an average of 50 highly qualified nurses geared to deliver excellence in healthcare to all Lanka Hospitals’ patients. The 2010 batch of Lanka Hospitals Nurses Training School trained nurses were felicitated amidst prominent medical personalities, family and friends at the school’s annual Capping Ceremony held recently.

Speaking on the quality of nursing graduates Lanka Hospitals CEO Lakith Peiris emphasized the standard of the nursing school. “As the only hospital in Sri Lanka to have a dedicated nursing school, the Lanka Hospital Nurses Training School ensures that all our nurses are fully qualified and able to deliver the high level of service our patients expect from us. Ensuring that each member of the teaching staff has public sector qualifications ensures the quality of Lanka Hospitals Nursing”.

With all courses conducted in English, the success rate of graduating nurses are 100 percent, with each graduate guaranteed a nursing position in the Lanka Hospitals staff. Additionally, all nurses in charge of units in Lanka Hospitals are past graduates of the Lanka Hospitals Nursing School, having proven them to be the crème of the crop of an average of 50 students per batch who follows the exact syllabus of the government nursing schools.

Speaking on the standards maintained at the Lanka Hospitals Nurses Training School, Director Medical Services Dr. Wimal Karandhagoda said, “The standards for safety and high quality have been established on parallel with the greatest training schools around the world, ensuring that all out graduates come out into the field with complete training experience with both patients and consultants”