COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
Country of Origin Information Service
UK Border Agency
29 January 2012
Dear colleague,
Re: Cancer Treatment in Sri Lanka
The British High Commission in Colombo routinely monitors health treatment in Sri Lanka. This
letter updates and replaces any previous letters on this subject. On 27 January 2012 we visited
Maharagama Cancer Institute in Western Province, where we spoke to Dr Yasantha Ariyaratne,
the Senior Consultant Clinical Oncologist.
He explained that the Cancer Institute is the main public hospital for the treatment of cancer in
Sri Lanka and the only establishment solely dedicated to this purpose. He explained that the
hospital has 789 beds, caters for 878 day-care patients. We were told that the medical team
included 24 radiotherapy oncologists, 4 paediatrician oncologists, 3 surgical oncologists, 3
gynaecological oncologists, 1 haematologist (plus haematology students from the College of Sri
Lanka), 1 general physician, 2 senior anaesthetists (there are always 4 junior anaesthetists
available) and more than 150 medical officers. The institute provides chemotherapy,
radiotherapy and surgical treatment for cancer patients and possesses 1 linear accelerator and
brachytherapy equipment. We were informed that all of the senior consultants had been trained
and worked in the UK, USA or Australia at some stage and that many were well versed in the
British NHS system.
Dr Ariyaratne stated that there were cancer units within public sector hospitals in Kandy and
Galle (both teaching hospitals), and in Jaffna, Anuradhapura, Badulla and Kurunegala. Surgical,
chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment was available at all of these hospitals, apart from
Kurunegala, where only surgical and chemotherapy treatments were available along with cobalt
therapy. There are surgical oncologists based at Kandy, Anuradhapura and Batticaloa. We were
told that there were no bone marrow transplant facilities available in the public sector in Sri
Lanka.
Within the private sector, Dr Ariyaratne said that there was chemotherapy, radiotherapy and
surgical therapy available at hospitals in Colombo and Kandy. The private sector could also
provide some stem cell transplants, although this was limited. The main hospitals providing
cancer treatment were Ceylinco Hospital and the Oasis Hospital, both in Colombo. He added
that the Ceylinco Hospital had a linear accelerator. Ceylinco‘s own website
www.ceylincohealth.com states that ―The Ceylinco Healthcare Centre is equipped for oral,
breast, colorectal, stomach and cervical cancer screening, as well as for genetic testing to
identify high-risk families. Tests such as mammography, colonoscopy, endoscopy,
laryngoscopy, ultrasound screening and x-ray are performed at the centre in comfortable and
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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