Health sector in crisis

By Aisha Nazim-Thursday, 01 Aug 2013

Food supplies to hospitals will come to a standstill by next week, if arrears of Rs 600 million owed to food suppliers are not settled immediately, the Health Services Trade Union Alliance (HSTUA) revealed. Addressing a media briefing yesterday, President of the HSTUA, Saman Ratnapriya, said the Health Ministry had approached the Treasury twice in the recent past, to get funds to meet costs incurred on food. Though Rs 700 million has been allocated to all hospitals to cover the cost for food, only Rs 100 million had been issued, leaving an arrears of Rs 600 million, Ratnapriya claimed. "The health sector has many such shortcomings, and it is at such a moment that the Treasury has decided to cut down a further Rs 5 billion from the funds.

The situation is such that hospitals don't even have anaesthetics for surgical
operations. In some areas of the country, pregnant women have to get anaesthetics from pharmacies and take it to the hospital before their caesarian operations," he alleged, querying whether it was fair for the government to cut down on already insufficient funds.

Citing a number of other issues, the unionist charged the lack of funds has resulted in the reduction of fuel supply to the vehicles at the Karapitiya Hospital. Fuel was obtained from two filling stations in the vicinity of the hospital. However, as the hospital is Rs 1.2 million in debt to both filling stations, one of the sheds has stopped supplying fuel. The hospital also has an outstanding electricity bill of over Rs 3,970,000.