Health Ministry hands over IDP healthcare to northern officials

by Dilanthi Jayamanne

The Health Ministry will hand over the task of providing healthcare services to internally displaced camps in the Vanni to health officials of the Northern Province with effect from tomorrow (01).

"We will be pulling out", Health Ministry spokesman said. "Health officials of the region will take over".

He said the Cabinet had only given approval to the Ministry to maintain services at the camp for six months following the arrival of the internal displaced to camps in Vanni last May.

The spokesman said there were only around 95,000 internally displaced persons still remaining in the camps. The Ministry spends over one million rupees per day on sustaining the services in these camps. The health workers have to be paid their overtime, batta and transport allowances as well as funds for their food.

The spokesman said the medical equipment in the camps would be handed over to NPC Governor, Maj. Gen. (Retd) G. A. Chandrasiri to be used at the Chettikulam Base Hospital.

Nurses will not be a problem as they were from the Vavuniya Nurses Training school. Government nurses arrived to assist at the camp as soon as the displaced started coming into Chetticulam during the humanitarian operations last May. Since then nurses from the training school in Vavuniya took over.

There are approximately 105 doctors serving at the camps. Forty Five of them would be left to serve the remaining IDPs while the others would be transferred to hospitals in the North and the South of the country according to the merit list, the spokesman said. The Ministry would discuss the transfers of these doctors with the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) before coming up with this year’s transfer list.

Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has already issued instructions to Acting Health Secretary Dr. Nihal Jayatilake to prepare the merit list of the doctors who are to remain at the camp during a review meeting held last Thursday.

The remaining medical staff would also be given replacement in other hospitals in the country. He said the ambulances would also be handed over to Northern Province health care services.