The Government has identified 100 estate hospitals and health facilities for takeover by the Health Ministry after staff shortages forced some facilities to close and left others facing the threat of closure, Deputy Health Minister Dr Hansaka Wijemuni said.

Responding to questions from The Daily Morning, he said some health facilities had already been forced to close due to a lack of staff, while many estate hospitals continued to be managed by plantation companies rather than coming under the Health Ministry.

He said the Government had now begun the process of taking over these facilities, with 100 identified for the first phase.

The facilities include central dispensaries, central dispensaries with maternity units and other smaller health facilities.

“Earlier, doctors were recruited separately for these estate hospitals as estate medical officers, but that system is no longer in place. Therefore, many of these hospitals are now facing the threat of closure due to the shortage of doctors and other staff,” he said.

Dr Wijemuni said some estate hospitals had been converted into rural hospitals over the years, but others continued to be managed by the estates. The Government would use the existing buildings and other infrastructure of these facilities together with Government resources after taking them over, he said.

“Some of these facilities are not strategically important, but there are areas where people have to walk several kilometres to find a hospital. Although the population in some of these areas is small, access to other health facilities is difficult. Therefore, we have decided to take over such facilities,” he said.

The Health Ministry and the Ministry of Plantation Infrastructure are jointly working on the takeover of the 100 facilities, Dr Wijemuni said. He added that rural hospitals already under the Health Ministry had generally not been closed, although there could be one or two isolated cases.