Hospitals in the North and East are facing an accommodation crisis, with a shortage of beds and space to treat the steady stream of injured people entering cleared areas outside the war zone.
A Health Ministrry official said there are plans to set up mobile hospitals and use buildings and institutions as temporary medical centres.
“We are in need of 1,000-bed hospitals, and we will be renting buildings for this purpose,” the official said. “We have received beds from hospitals in every province. We will be deploying these 800 beds in a factory in Padaviya and buildings of the Mineral Sands Corporation in Pulmudai. These buildings are being converted into temporary hospitals.”
“We are asking foreign governments to help us set up mobile hospitals for the large number of injured persons entering safe areas”, he said,
A medical team from India is ready to start providing services from tomorrow at a 50-bed mobile hospital in Pulmudai. The Indian team of 52 comprises consultants, doctors, nurses, paramedics and technicians.
The Sunday Times understands that more than 800 cases of chicken pox have been reported from the North and East, and that diarrhoeal diseases are spreading.
The Vavuniya district secretary Mrs. P. S. M. Charles told The Sunday Times that the rains were aiding the spread of infectious diseases, and that medical teams were closely monitoring hygiene conditions in the camps.
She said both patients and civilians entering the cleared areas are in desperate need of nutritional supplements.
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