News
Medicines sans storage
The Puttalam Base Hospital ministers to some 650,000 patients annually. It is an important medical institution catering to members of the public, workers in the salterns’, factories, the Norochcholai coal power plant as well as armed forces personnel stationed in the area.
Left exposed to the elements, but the health authorities have not woken up to the problem
However patients visiting the hospital are treated to the sight of hundreds of boxes of medicines lining the corridors of the hospital. A clear indication that this place of healing has no space to store its medicine.
Until recently a government building in the grounds of the Puttalam MOH’s office served as a store.
However once it was discovered the mouldy and unhygienic conditions in that building was causing stocks of medicine that were stored getting spoiled, there was no alternative but to store them along the corridors of the hospital itself.
Director of the Puttalam Base Hospital Dr. Sumith Attanayake said he, as well as his predecessors had been continuously complaining to the authorities of the lack of storage facilities, but to no avail.
Meanwhile with no proper storage facilities, medicines worth millions of rupees will soon be lost.
Boxes of medicine line the corridors of the hospital
An open invitation to pilfer… Its surely a difficult job to protect the medicines at this hospital
Hardly any room for patients to be trolleyed from wards to treatment centres… as large boxes of medicines line the corridors