PT for state sector employees from next year

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

The Health Ministry will allocate a certain time every week for all state sector employees to undergo Physical Training (PT) from next year.

The ministry will also organize the National Policy on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) next year, a Health Ministry spokesman said. The spokesman said around 71 percent of deaths reported from state hospitals were due to NCDs, such as, heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer or related complications. According to the spokesman, Sri Lankans consume high amounts of salt and sugar when comparing to the standards approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). A person is required to consume less than five grams of salt per day, but, a Sri Lankan consumes 10 to 115 grams of salt per day.

A person needs to consume less than 10 grams of sugar per day but a Sri Lankan consumes 60 to 75 grams of sugar per day. This situation directly leads to increase blood pressure. Around 82 percent of Sri Lankan adults over the age of 40 do not consume required amount of fruits and vegetables per day. Many Sri Lankans have higher Body Mass Index (BMI) value than the healthy/required value. Many Sri Lankans do not exercise or exercise more than the required amount and time.

A healthy person needs to exercise 600 metabolic minutes per week.

Around 30 percent of Sri Lankan women and 19 percent of Sri Lankan men do not get the required amount of exercise, he said. The health ministry has appointed a special official to handle NCDs at district level and special NCD units are to be set up at Divisional Secretariat Division next year.

The government has allocated Rs 900 million to control NCDs for the next three years in addition to the annual budgetary allocation for the health sector, he added.