CHENNAI: In an effort to spread awareness about preventive healthcare methods, FICCI in collaboration with The New Indian Express organised the 12th edition of TANCARE, a conference for professionals from the medical, corporate and government healthcare sectors.
"With healthcare issues spreading across the country, we need these sectors to cooperate and work together to sensitise about and increase accessibility to preventive healthcare methods," said Dr C Vijaya Bhaskar, Minister of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare, government of Tamil Nadu, in his valedictory speech at the conference.
With the evolution of technology, humans have lost exposure to basic health practices like eating fresh foods and maintaining cleanliness, he explained. This has been the cause of decline in the collective heath of the state. In light of this, over 20 speakers from various professional backgrounds spoke about the methods that can be adopted to avoid health risks.
"Because of technological advancements we can now sequence 10 genomes at a time for just $400 as compared to thousands of dollars that it cost ten years ago. We can now predict multiple genome mutations even before birth," said Dr Srinivasan Vedantham, associate director of operations, MedGenome Labs.
In her speech about school health programmes and mandatory requirements, Dr Indira Jayakumar spoke of regular health check-ups, including tests for vitamin D deficiency and mental health issues. "Children today are being diagnosed with a whole new set of medical issues because of the environment they are being exposed to," she said.
Many preventive techniques have also been adopted in corporate offices. Dr S Sundar, physiatrist, physical medicine and rehabilitation, founder and trustee, Freedom Trust, said, “Comfort at workplace is absolutely essential for better quality of work. Medical issues nowadays trace back to stress. Organisations have to factor in employee health check-ups for maximum efficiency.”
For schoolchildren
In her speech about school health programmes and mandatory requirements, Dr Indira Jayakumar spoke of regular health check-ups including those for mental health issues.