News
Land-grabbers squeeze Kandy Hospital services
The Kandy (Teaching) Hospital is fighting a losing battle to regain more than 40 acres of its land and expand badly-needed services to
care for the thousands of patients coming in for treatment from all over the country.
As a result of encroachment by hundreds of private dwellings the hospital has only been left with 19 of the 59 acres it was originally deeded to care for the sick- restricting it from expanding and modernising its services.
The second largest medical institution in the country, the Kandy Teaching Hospital attracts patients not only from all over the Central Province but also from Jaffna, Badulla, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Ampara and other areas.
Some 600-700 patients are admitted to beds every day. Apart from that the Out-Patients Department treats 540,000 people annually and close to a million patients come to clinics each year.
The hospital director, Dr. R.M.S.K. Ratnayake said that while the National Hospital in Colombo had the flexibility of being able to transfer or refer patients to the Lady Ridgway Hospital for Children, the Cancer Hospital in Maharagama, the De Soyza and Castle Street maternity hospitals, the Dental Institute, the Eye Hospital and the National Institute of Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation, the Kandy Teaching Hospital housed all these services on one site.
He said that, as there was a shortage of space for a purpose-built cancer unit, the hospital had renovated a storage room and opened it as the new cancer unit with about 100 beds.
Several overseas funding opportunities had stalled due to lack of space, Dr. Ratnayake revealed.
The battle against encroachment of hospital land has been going on for a decade, said senior Consultant Anaesthesiologist Dr. Saman Karunatilake, who is also the former president of the Kandy Teaching Hospital’s Government Medical Officers Association.
“There are more constructions coming up and about 400 families live here in multi-storey houses. These include houses of senior police officials and influential persons. Day by day, more land is being acquired.”
Dilapidated state of the Hospital Director’s quarters
Ironically, many of the private owners who have built on hospital land rent rooms out to families of patients.
Dr. Karunatilake said plans to build Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) facilities, and emergency service and obstetrics complexes had been delayed due to the lack of space. The hospital also lacked adequate parking space.
The land that has been encroached on was gifted to the Kandy Hospital during colonial times and once belonged to the Kandy Natha Devalaya.
Lack of facilities: A patient receiving an IV drip while seated
Commissioner for the Kandy Municipal Council Chandana Tennakoon said the land given to the hospital was state land and there were no plans to relocate people residing on the contested part of the property.
“No such discussions have taken place,” he said.
Dr. Karunatilake said discussions about regaining hospital property had been held with the Health Minister and other ministers both from local government as well as the central government. The matter had been taken up with the police and in the courts.
Dr. Ratnayake said that the hospital had been beset with complaints by people who had built on its lands. “There was a continuous issue with them regarding the disposal of clinical waste,” he said. “Those residing on the hospital land complained about the smoke issuing from the burning of clinical waste. The Kandy Municipal Council is now collecting the clinical waste,” he said.
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