For a long time, recognized professionals have pointed out that the Neville Fernando Hospital in Malabe should be converted to a specialized Covid 19 treatment hospital to ease the burden on the strained health system of the country. Today the Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi who failed to take the decision and the owner of the hospital Dr Neville Fernando are both at the IDH being treated for Covid 19.
According to the sources of the Ministry of Health, the state hospital system only has 25 ICU in special treatment units and only one ECMO machine to deal with the Covid epidemic, which has become a serious crisis in the country.
Although the vast majority of the 320 cases of Covid that have died so far are due to exacerbation of Covid induced pneumonia, there is a serious problem with Sri Lanka having only one ECMO machine used to save the lives of patients whose pneumonia is exacerbated and oxygen exchange is disrupted.
The following are the beds in the intensive care units and special treatment units currently used throughout Sri Lanka for Covid treatment.
The first intensive care unit of IDH Hospital has 03 beds.
The second intensive care unit has 04 beds. The Intensive Care Unit of the Colombo East Base Hospital has 04 beds.
The special treatment unit has 04 beds.
The Intensive Care Unit of Homagama Hospital has 03 beds.
Anuradhapura Hospital has 2 beds.
The Kandy Intensive Care Unit has 04 beds.
Each of these ICUs is reported to have more patients than the number of beds in need of treatment. Currently, two of these limited number of beds are occupied by the Minister of Health and Dr Neville Fernando.
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