COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
Country of Origin Information Service
UK Border Agency
30 January 2012
Dear Eugenio,
Re: Treatment of Kidney Patients in Sri Lanka
The British High Commission in Colombo routinely monitors health treatment in Sri Lanka. This
letter replaces and supersedes any previous letter issued by the mission regarding the above
subject. On 26 January 2012 we spoke to Mrs Janet Gunsesekara who is the head of the
Kidney Patient‘s Welfare Society (KWPS). She gave us an update on the treatment of kidney
patients in Sri Lanka.
Mrs Gunesekara stated that the needs of kidney patients had increased in Sri Lanka in recent
years. She stated that there were around 250 dialysis machines and only 17 nephrologists in
the entire country. There are no reliable statistics on the number of persons suffering from
kidney failure but it is currently estimated that every year a further 10,000 people are diagnosed.
This increase is directly linked to the higher number of patients diagnosed with chronic diabetes.
She said there was also a major concern that many patients are only indentified with kidney
issues at the chronic level, where both kidneys have failed, and added that it was very rare that
a patient was diagnosed at acute level. Mrs Gunesekera gave the opinion that there are many
more people suffering from the illness who were not even aware.
The availability of dialysis treatment is extremely limited due mainly to the extreme demand for
limited machines, but also the cost of the treatment and the fact that poor water pressure over
virtually the entire island means that hospitals offering such treatment are limited to being in
Colombo and Kandy. An added cost is the travel to and from the hospital, given that nearly all of
the hospitals offering treatment are in these areas and a large percentage of the patients live in
rural areas. Some poorer patients without funds are often transported in vans. It was added that
people often had a lack of trust in providing funds to such patients.
Braun & Company and Commercial Syndicate are the only suppliers of dialysis machines. Each
dialysis machine can carry out a maximum of four treatment sessions per day. Each session
lasts for 4 hours. However, because of the lack of new machines being purchased and poor
maintenance they are often limited to three. This does not include time put aside for
maintenance, plus many patients require several dialysis sessions per week. It is estimated that
Sri Lanka requires between 500 and 1000 dialysis machine to cope with demand. Doctors and
nurses in Sri Lanka are reluctant to take up nephrology due to the lack of dialysis machines and
other services such as technicians and maintenance capacities; this has created a shortage of
nephrologists to treat the growing numbers of kidney patients.
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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