Ministry spends Rs. 550 million on IDP health

The Health Ministry has spent over Rs. 550 million to improve the health of the IDPs over the past three months, Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said.

The Minister addressing the 62nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for South East Asia in Kathmandu last week said many countries including India, Germany, Italy and USA and several organizations supported Sri Lanka in providing a good health service to the IDPs.

Minister de Silva met Nepal Prime Minister Yadev Kumar. The Minister also attended the 27th meeting of Health Ministers of South East Asian region.

"Currently at least 210,000 people are in welfare villages and 50,000 civilians will be resettled next week and 150,000 will be resettled in the mid week of October. The Government has taken steps to provide them better health and education facilities," the Minister said.

"We don't need to keep them long in welfare villages. After removing land mines and the security of these people is confirmed, we will resettle them," he said.

The Ministry provides health services to this population through its well established curative and public health services network consisting five referral centres out of which four are working round the clock. There are 18 primary health centres in seven welfare villages in Vavuniya District. Over 3,000 patients are treated daily at these centres.

There were 100 Government doctors and over 50 nurses with other primary healthcare staff including midwives, Public Health Inspectors to provide round the clock health services, the Minister said.

He also said there are negative reports on the IDP condition. There is a remarkable drop in all communicable diseases in welfare villages. However, a manageable number of cases of chickenpox and diarrhoea are reported.

The death rate of IDPs in South East Asia, according to the Sphere guidelines could be within six to 12 for 265,000 people. The total number of deaths reported last month among IDPs was 62 which is well below the Sphere standards, the Minister added.