The Hon. (Dr.) Sandaruwan Madarasinghe

¶ 01 I will conclude my speech, Hon. Deputy Chairperson.

¶ 02 In line with the allocated funds, this Government expects to recruit more than 14,000 personnel to the health service. Some of these recruitments have already begun. In particular, we have started with 2,008 medical interns and 1,738 post-intern medical officers, 84 dental interns, and 104 post-intern dental surgeons, who we expect to recruit this December. Additionally, 303 Ayurvedic doctors have been recruited. Sixty-seven dengue prevention assistants have been recruited. A total of 797 have been sent for nursing training, including Public Health Nursing Officers, Public Health Inspectors and Supervisory Officers, and Ward Management and Supervisory Officers. Furthermore, 1,949 have been admitted to training schools for the 2019 and 2021 nursing batches. From the 2019 cohort, 3,147 have been appointed as Grade III Nursing Officers. In this manner, representing various sectors, we are recruiting staff to strengthen the health service.

¶ 03 There has been no cadre revision for hospitals in recent years. Funds have now been allocated by this Government to conduct a cadre revision, and we intend to proceed with it.

¶ 04 Under a key social welfare programme of this Government, we have allocated Rs. 4.2 billion to the “Suwa Seriya” ambulance service to upgrade it to a world-class service. At present, about 250 ambulances operate daily; we need to double this to become a developed service internationally. Our goal is to bring the response time down to about seven minutes. We expect to add approximately 153 new ambulances. As a Government, we are working to uplift the health service that had deteriorated, and we hope these efforts will succeed. We believe that, within the next few years, Sri Lanka can overcome current shortcomings and become a country with a top-level health service. With that reminder, I conclude. Thank you.