Sunshine Healthcare fights diabetes with ‘Seeni Maru’ public awareness campaign

Sunshine Healthcare, part of the diversified conglomerate Sunshine Holdings PLC, looks to foster important and timely dialogue about the causes, complications and treatments associated with diabetes amongst all Sri Lankans. Appropriately themed ‘Seeni Maru’, a clever vernacular double entendre meaning that sugar is both sweet and great as much as it can be deadly, the campaign focuses heavily on inspiring citizens to combat this fatal NCD through equal doses of both preventive and curative care. The parent campaign ‘Seeni Maru’ branches off into a unique crusade, ‘Seeni Kiyada’ (What is your sugar level?), to cultivate a culture where people are as much informed of their blood sugar levels as they are of things like their weight or height. 

Sunshine Healthcare’s Seeni Maru will go hard and fast to persuade immediate action through natural lifestyle changes, better dietary practices, as well as by inculcating the vital habit of regular screening. As a credible expert in the subject, they aim to supplement this long-term project through several creative and aggressive digital campaigns. 

Commenting on the rationale behind their latest initiative, Sunshine Healthcare Managing Director Shyam Sathasivam said, “Recognising the severity of threat to quality of life due to diabetes due to a significant information gap, Seeni Maru aims to drive a call-to-action in Sri Lanka where one in five adults is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. Yet a majority remains unaware of the short- and long-term complications of the disease, those if not prevented and left untreated can prove to have devastating consequences to both patients and families.”

The International Diabetes Federation estimates that approximately 194 million people worldwide, or 5.1% of the adult population have diabetes and that this figure will rise to 333 million by 2025 as a consequence of changing dietary patterns, a sedentary lifestyle and longer life expectancy. This rise is likely to bring a proportional increase in the number of people with diabetes complications. In turn in Sri Lanka, alarming statistics portray that diabetes complications cause over 50% of the amputations that happen in hospitals. Not only this, over time, elevated levels of blood glucose are also associated with long-term damage to other parts of the body and the failure of various vital organs and tissues.

“It is possible to reduce diabetes complications through the prevention and aggressive management of existing diabetes as well as by educating patients, their families and healthcare professionals. Complications have shown to contribute the most to the financial costs of diabetes. However, with the right tools, many of these complications are preventable, and therefore the associated costs are avoidable. “Seeni Maru is our response to mitigating this growing pain by advocating for a healthier lifestyle, so people are informed enough to take control of this condition before it is too late,” Sathasivam further opined.

Sunshine Healthcare aims to advocate their messaging in two unique ways; better informing those who have already been diagnosed with diabetes on how to manage and mitigate complications arising from the condition, and advocating for a healthier lifestyle among the rest to prevent increases in blood sugar levels. 

Sunshine Healthcare has been involved in the healthcare business since 1967 – for over half a century – after commencing operations as a retail pharmacy in Gampola. Today, Sunshine Healthcare markets over 650 pharmaceuticals, wellness brands, medical diagnostic equipment and surgical products to all pharmacies and hospitals island-wide and accounts for a significant share of the country’s private healthcare sector.