COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

SRI LANKA 7 MARCH 2012
With regard to public sector hospitals providing dialysis treatment we were told that the main
hospitals were the National Hospital in Colombo, the Teaching Hospital Colombo South, Sri
Jayewardenepura General Hospital and Kandy General Hospital. Old dialysis machines had
been donated to the Police Hospital and Badulla Hospital. The problem with the public sector
was that the Sri Lankan government simply could not afford to increase the number of facilities.
Often it is only when organisations such as the KPWS fund and build units, or provides
machines, that the government then allocate funds for staffing and running costs.
In the private sector the following Colombo hospitals were specifically mentioned by Mrs
Gunesekera: Navaloka Hospitals, Durdans Hospitals, Asiri Hospitals, Apollo Hospital and Asha
Central Hospital. Costs for a dialysis treatment vary from Rs 6,000 – 10,000 per session (£34-
£57), so for a person requiring 3 sessions a week costs could be as high as Rs 30,000 (£170)
per week. The initial dialysis treatment is available in the public sector free of charge, but
thereafter patients need to purchase their own dialysis consumables at the price of Rs. 1,300
(£7) each. She added that people who can afford treatment in the private sector are often
unable to access it because of the high demand and they end up in a queue.
Mrs Gunesekera explained that many of the hospitals mentioned above, in both public and
private sector, were able to carry out kidney transplant operations. She added however that the
biggest problem was finding donors. There has never been a national campaign to encourage
organ donation, and there is not a national register of organ donors in Sri Lanka. Locating a
suitable organ was down to the individuals requiring a transplant to advertise in the newspapers
to seek out donors. Many people who can afford it choose to go overseas for a transplant, to
Singapore, US, UK, or more likely India. Persons who cannot afford to go overseas can make
an application to the President‘s Fund for assistance with funding.
Yours sincerely
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Second Secretary (Migration)
This letter has been compiled by staff of the British High Commission in Colombo
entirely from information obtained from sources indicated. The letter does not reflect the
opinions of the author, not any policy of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The author
has compiled this letter in response to a request from UKBA and any further enquiries
regarding its contents should be directed to UKBA.
248 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.