Minister to solve surgical gauze shortage

Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena has intervened to solve the problem relating to the shortage of surgical gauze in hospitals countrywide.

This follows a meeting the Minister had with local gauze manufactures at the MRI, Colombo yesterday. All 262 local gauze manufactures attended the meeting.

Manufactures pointed out that the current shortage of gauze was due to the long New Year holiday season and subsequent heavy rains which prevented the drying of gauze manufactured a Ministry release said.

The Minister who gave a patient hearing to the problems raised by gauze manufactures decided that henceforth manufactures should be given annual quotas instead of the present quarterly quotas.

However action would be taken against the manufactures who failed to supply their quotas in time.

The manufactures who promised an uninterrupted supply of gauze in future also promised to keep a buffer stock to present any shortage in the future.