First human nutrition course launched

by Carol Aloysius

The Post Graduate Institute of Medicine ( PGIM) will conduct Sri Lanka's first Human Nutrition course from tomorrow.

The - training course will focus on the management of nutritional problems of children, pregnant and lactating mothers, critically ill patients and the public in general. Participants will include doctors who wish to specialise in the field of nutrition, thus filling a void in medical education, a spokesperson for the Government Medical Officers Association ( GMOA) said.

The new course is one of ten recommendations which the GMOA has submitted to all Cabinet ministers . Other recommendations include: the establishment of a separate Human Nutritive Unit, an ethical code for advertising of food including milk and enhancing existing clinical toxicological services in the country.

" The government has already approved three of our recommendations: 1) to appoint a subcommittee for the Safety Food concept which we proposed and 2) Starting a Human Nutrition course with the idea of creating a new breed of Medical Nutritionists, which is the need of the hour, and suspend advertising of milk foods", GMOA spokesman Dr Nalinda Herath told the Sunday Observer. He added that although advertising of milk powders had been temporarily suspended by the Health Ministry, the GMOA was still awaiting a gazette notification to this effect from the Consumer Affairs Authority.

He said 21 doctors would be following the postgraduate training programme co-ordinated by Consultant Nutritionist Dr Renuka Jayatissa. " The lecturers will comprise both local and foreign specialists in the field of nutrition. Participants may thereafter be sent abroad for further training and return as Consultant Medical Nutritionists to serve the local public", he said.