Minister tells health officials:

Open closed hospitals

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

Ninety five state hospitals had been closed down during the past five years . Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena ordered health officials to re-open and upgrade all soon, a Health Ministry spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, all 95 hospitals had been closed due to lack of human and other resources to serve the public. All those hospitals are located in the Northern Province, Eastern Province and in the estate sector and such hospitals were serving the poor.

Minister Sirisena ordered the health officials to re-open all 95 state hospitals and develop them to provide free health services to the public. "This will be done within this year. During the past three years the percentage of patients in Sri Lanka has increased by 20 percent. Therefore it is essential to have more state hospitals," the spokesman said.

The Minister has decided to provide human resources to these 95 state hospitals from the new appointments to be made in the near future.

Priority will be given to these 95 hospitals by posting newly recruited doctors, nurses and all the other health staff, he added.