At state hospitals:

Five million in-house patients treated annually

Nadira Gunatilleke

Sri Lanka is the only country in the world where a hospital/medical institution is located every three square kilometres. Sri Lankan state hospitals treat five million in-house patients and 43 million OPD patients annually. The Colombo National Hospital treats 2.5 million patients per year, a Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry spokesman said.

He said the Government has increased the annual health budget to Rs. 89,000 million in 2008 and brought down the infant mortality rate to 11.3 percent. The rate was 19.8 percent in 1990. In 2005 Sri Lanka’s infant mortality rate was the lowest in the region.

According to the spokesman Sri Lanka has been providing a quality free health care service to the public since 1934 while a large number of countries have already privatised their health care system. The free health service of the country has increased life expectancy of a Sri Lankan male up to 76.4 female’ up to 71.7. Certain diseases such as Polio and Leprosy have already been eradicated from Sri Lanka. The country records one of the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates (0.1) in the world.

High number of injuries, Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) such as diabetes, heart diseases and high blood pressure and global epidemics such as (A)H1N1 are the challenges faced by the Sri Lankan health care system at the moment, he added.