Mandatory Health Check up & blood tests of students will check drug addiction

Grewal & Joshi Writes to Chief Minister Punjab
Chandigarh, July 7, 2018: Chairman Joshi Foundation, Vineet Joshi and former national Secretary BJP & Patron Joshi Foundation Harjit Singh Grewal, had sought introduction of mandatory Biannual health check up & Annual Blood Test in Schools (class VIII and above) and institutes of higher learning in Punjab.
Grewal and Joshi today e-mailed and tweeted memorandum to Chief Minister Punjab Captain Amarinder seeking their intervention to implement the proposal.
Mandatory Biannual Health Check Up and Annual Blood Test of Students of Schools (class VIII and above), Colleges, Universities, Technical Institutes, Health Science Institutes, etc at the time of admission and promotion to subsequent classes will not only help in early detection of diseases, it will also help identify patterns of drug addiction among youth. Besides, the plan would help in less painful and pocket friendly treatment on account of early diagnosis, said Grewal and Joshi.
They added that as per a 2014 UN report with 356 million 10-24 year-olds, India has the world's largest youth population. Health mapping of each and every youth of Punjab may be a difficult task taking into consideration the diverse geographical conditions, lack of infrastructure, huge monetary constraints, low literacy level, etc, but a large section of youth is available in educational institutions all over Punjab. “Why not at-least map them? Youngsters in educational institutes are available at one place in bulk, so, are soft target for drug Mafia and Peddlers,” Vinet Joshi said. The answer, Joshi said, lies in checking the problem at a nascent stage through mandatory annual blood tests, records of which will be maintained in the file of students by educational institutions.
This exercise has an inherent advantage that bolsters the state government’s war against drugs. By making this test compulsory, it will not be hard to identify students who have fallen prey to the menace of drugs. With this, we will not only be able to help such students with timely medical, sociological and psychological interventions. He said that the identification and leads to nab drug traffickers will also be possibly this way.