Tamil Nadu

Women, elders have welcomed ban on smoking: Anbumani

TIRUCHI: The ban on smoking in public places has won the appreciation of elders and women, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said here on Friday.

Tobacco consumption in different forms being the cause of 10 lakh deaths every year, the Health Ministry expects States to enforce the ban seriously, he told reporters here. It would help to make work places smoke-free.

The Minister said India ranked second in tobacco consumption and 40 per cent of ailments were tobacco-related. Enforcing a total ban on tobacco products would take time since it concerned six other departments, including industry, agriculture, finance and commerce.

As India is a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a total ban was inevitable, he said.

The National Health Rural Mission had won international acclaim as the fastest growing public health programme. The Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) under the mission had benefited 65 lakh women, who were given pre and post-natal in well-equipped Primary Health Centres, Dr. Anbumani said.

Having obtained Rs.1,850 crore since 2005, Tamil Nadu was a front-ranking State in implementation of JSY, he said, adding that requirements of the hospitals were taken care of at different levels by the Patient Welfare Committees and Village Health and Sanitation Committees that had been vested with financial powers.

On shortage of doctors in government hospitals, Dr. Anbumani said he hoped the State government would address the issue by implementing the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations and increasing the age of retirement from 58 to 62 years.

On the upgradation of the Government Hospital in Tiruchi to the standards of the AIIMS, Dr. Anbumani said the Ministry would do the needful for starting speciality disciplines at the hospital within the next two to three months.

Moves were afoot to stringently punish companies found responsible for selling spurious drugs and to bring all hospitals and laboratories under regulatory mechanism, he said.

Earlier, Dr. Anbumani called on Vanniyar Sangam president and senior PMK leader, ‘Kaduvetti’ Guru, at the central jail. He assailed the DMK government for detaining Mr. Guru under the NSA. He wondered how a person could be detained under the Act just for making a speech

Mr. Anbumani said that a free general medical check-up would be conducted for inmates and employees of the Tiruchi Central Jail on October 22 by a team of doctors drawn from JIPMER, NIMHANS, and front-ranking hospitals in Chennai.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu