Situation dreadful, impose lockdown or travel restrictions immediately: PHI’s Union

While claiming that the country is heading towards a dangerous situation, the PHI union today charged the authorities have turned a blind eye to their repeated requests to go for a complete lockdown or to impose travel restrictions.

PHI Union President Upul Rohana said they had made several requests to the President and the Health Ministry to take immediate action to arrest the alarming situation in the country.

He told the Daily Mirror that due to the increase in the daily COVID positive cases count, a delay in taking the patient to a treatment centre becomes increasingly tough.

“Patients have to stay longer at their homes until they are taken to hospitals. There would be a possibility of witnessing more deaths due to this,” Rohana said.

He emphasized that the ground level operations carried out to prevent COVID spread is not so favourable.

"Due to the escalation in the number of positive cases, the Suwaseriya Ambulance Service also seemed unable to cope the need and as a result, they take at least four hours to pick patients," Rohana lamented.

Therefore, the Union has made a request to the Government and the Health Ministry to consider an immediate lockdown of the country or to impose travel restrictions as soon as possible. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)