Lankans have free access to health, education - Minister

Nadira Gunatilleke

Sri Lankans have been enjoying the free health and educational benefits for the past five decades, said Health Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva.

He was addressing the ninth International Conference on Social Development in Beijing, De Silva said Sri Lanka's health sector has set a record by preventing serious epidemics such as bird flu and Sars and also set highest record among the South Asian countries by having lowest percentages of maternal deaths and underweight births.

The World Health Organisation should act carefully when formulating guidelines to identify health trends at International level. Minister De Silva and Chilean Health Minister Barria Soleded were the special invitees for the conference.

He said the guidelines should be laid carefully considering the unique cultural, political and economical variations of different countries as such facts cause a direct impact on health development.

If the guidelines do not match to some countries they will not cooperate to implement the guidelines. Certain epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, bird flu and Sars are not confined to a country or a region any longer.

More attention should be paid to the uniqueness of procedures implemented by individual countries to control such epidemics, he said.