The Hon. Amirthanathan Adaikkalanathan

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, thank you for the opportunity to speak in the Committee Stage debate on the Ministries of Health and Mass Media. I will speak five minutes on health and two on media.

¶ 02 First, Mannar District General Hospital faces many shortcomings. I request that you visit or send your Deputy Minister. There is severe staff shortage and a lack of equipment. Though labeled a General Hospital, it lacks the full complement of services and resources. The approved consultant cadre is 24, yet there is not a single permanent consultant—only temporaries. This prevents continuous, quality care in the district’s only General Hospital.

¶ 03 Mannar District has no CT scanner anywhere, though the building is ready. Patients must be sent to Vavuniya, Jaffna, or Kilinochchi. Please prioritize Mannar when allocating incoming CT scanners; it is an essential need.

¶ 04 There is no Accident and Emergency Unit at Mannar GH; in any accident, patients are sent to Vavuniya or Jaffna. Please establish an A&E unit. For the past month, there has been no paediatrician—reportedly the previous doctor left without notice—so children are being referred out. These three issues all force transfers to other districts, causing hardship, especially to mothers and infants. Please act urgently. Despite staff shortages, doctors—many from the South—serve under difficulties. I thank them and appreciate their service mindset. Please have your Deputy Minister examine these issues on site and resolve key matters quickly.

¶ 05 On media: implement a housing scheme for journalists who often lack steady incomes; many have died in service, and some—like Sivaram—were murdered; these cases must be investigated. Also, online platforms host vicious defamation. Even when victims complain to the cybercrimes unit or police, they are told the sites operate from abroad and action is difficult. This causes mental trauma and tarnishes reputations. Please introduce mechanisms to punish such offenders effectively. Thank you.