GMOA criticises Colombo’s Health Ministry for inadequate COVID-19 testing capacity

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 April 2020, 22:08 GMT]
The SL Health Ministry of the unitary state system of Colombo, which is primarily responsible for the provision of comprehensive health services in the public sector has claimed that it was possible to conduct COVID-19 testing for 750 to 1,000 persons daily. However, the examination is underperformed in the population, according to the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA). The public sector medical institutions are conducting 250 tests or even less than that, according to Dr Samantha Ananda, the spokesperson of the GMOA.

“We clearly stated that even the World Health Organization had recommended aggressive testing. This means that everyone should be tested as much as possible and these tests should be conducted repeatedly,” Colombo-based News 1st quoted Dr Ananda as saying on Saturday.

“By Monday if our testing capacity is not increased we as the Government Medical Officers Association will take the necessary measures to protect the general public,” the GMOA spokesperson has stated.

However, the GMOA spokesman has failed to point out the SL military role as the committee appointed by the SL Health Ministry to control the spread of the Pandemic is being controlled by the military officers.

Furthermore, the arrests for violating the curfew stands at several hundreds each day while the testing performance is very low.

Five persons have perished and 166 have tested positive so far.

Colombo, Kandy, Gampaha, Kaluthara, Puththa'lam and Jaffna districts have been identified as the six high risk districts out of twenty-five districts in the island.

With curfew imposed for the past two weeks and travelling prohibited across the districts, except for essential service transport, the people who are solely dependent on daily wage earnings to sustain their livelihood are facing a hard time.

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