Sri Lanka Parliamentary Opposition in a discussion with diplomats has made a request to provide Sri Lanka with a field mobile hospital with 300 ICU beds.
MP Eran Wickramaratne told the media at the office of the Leader of Opposition that the capacity of the State Health Sector logistical services to handle the COVID-19 surge is in danger of imminent collapse.
He said Sri Lanka has only around 700 ICU beds and many international agencies and friendly countries do have the field hospitals with ICU facilities which can be set up in a matter of hours.
International agencies such as UNICEF and the IOM have these facilities. Therefore, the Opposition in Parliament decided to make this pre-emptive request for a mobile hospital for the sake of the people devoid of political gain.
“We have a huge problem on our hand due to rapid spread of COVID-19 virus. The situation in India is alarming.
The vaccination process would cost the State about Rs 15 billion. But the loss of revenue due to sugar scam was Rs 15.9 billion. It is not rocket science but the whole world wants to be vaccinated,” he said.
“We are facing another crisis which is a variant of this virus and nobody knows how it would attack the people. The number of positive cases is escalating daily and the actual rate could be more than the official number. Sri Lanka is on the Red Light Zone on this issue now,” Wickramaratne said.
Wickramaratne concluded that on behalf of the citizens of Sri Lanka, they wish to make pre-emptive request to the international agencies and friendly Governments to provide a 300 bed field hospital with ICU facilities to overcome our current temporary healthcare needs for COVID-19 patients.