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Covid patients exceeding govt. health sector capacity: GMOA

27 Apr 2021

  • 1,600 new doctors in next two months: Health Ministry

  The number of Covid-19 patients are steadily rising due to the new variant and it has already exceeded the capacity of the Government’s health sector, said Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) Secretary Dr. Sonal Fernando. The new variant is very severe and most of the positive patients are hospitalised with conditions such as pneumonia, he added. “The number of ICU (Intensive Care Unit) beds required to treat the rising number of patients have also gone up, making the situation very critical,” he said. He stated that previously, when there were 8,000 patients, the requirement for ICU beds stood at 17, but now it has gone up to 36. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday (26) that plans have been made to add 1,600 doctors to the list of doctors who will be appointed in the next two months to alleviate the shortage of doctors. This was revealed at a special discussion on the work to be done by the Ministry of Health in the field of health in Sri Lanka by the year 2025 and development activities, held yesterday under the patronage of Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi. In addition to the Ministry allocations, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have also initiated programmes on concessionary loan assistance to alleviate the shortage of physical resources in these hospitals. The Ministry has also initiated a special programme to control non-communicable diseases. It was revealed that the Ministry of Health has prepared a special programme to take necessary measures to address the daily health problems of the people of Sri Lanka, despite the fact that the current pandemic is a major obstacle to the implementation of these programmes. The Government has taken steps to provide the necessary financial assistance to the Ministry of Health. 


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