Not a single malaria patient reported this year - Minister

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

Sri Lanka has not reported a single Malaria patient for this year up to date, Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said.

Explaining the advancement of the Sri Lanka's health sector Minister de Silva said there were over 400,000 TB patients when he took over the office but now there were only 200,000.

The Government has allocated Rs.89 billion from the National Budget for the free health service. Sri Lanka provides everything free for the patients including expensive heart surgeries. China is planning to offer a free healthcare service by 2025 while Sri Lanka had it since 1948.

Sri Lanka has one of the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates and that is because of the country's rich cultural heritage, free healthcare service and the high literacy rate," the Minister said.

The Minister was addressing the inauguration of `Regional Workshop on TB Control in the context of Health Systems Strengthening' at Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo yesterday. Minister de Silva said Third World countries spend a large amount of public funds and educate health professionals and then send them abroad for training.

"After obtaining the training they stay in the same countries without returning to their motherlands. Third World countries suffer without adequate trained health professionals after spending all the funds to educate them and train them. Therefore there should be a system that the developed countries pay to developing countries when obtaining the service of trained health professionals," he said.

The Minister said there should be a convention in connection with the migration of trained health professionals from Third World countries.

Some equitable adjustment has to be made in this regard. The developed countries should not be selfish when it comes to solving this issue".

Minister de Silva pointed out that many health professionals go to courts even for minor issues. They do not want to go and serve in rural areas where there is no private practice. They want to stay at lucrative locations. Trade unions are dominating the health sector. They always focus on keeping their monopoly.

They tried to sabotage TB control in Sri Lanka but they could not do it due to the wise action taken to train staff to carry out basic diagnosis of TB, he said.

After implementing the Alcohol and Tobacco Control Act, Sri Lanka earned about Rs. 50 million from fines while sales have gone down by around 15 per cent. About 78 per cent of the Sri Lankan population depend on agriculture and earlier they got only Rs.15 per one kilogramme of paddy but today they get over Rs. 45 per kilogramme, the Minister added.