Lethargic approach of the health sector

Sri Lanka is going through a critical period in respect of containing the COVID 19, the pandemic that emerged in Wuhan city in China in late 2019 and had invaded the whole world by now. This may be the only issue in the human history which the mankind has been concerned about concurrently. Even the two world wars excepted some countries from their direct impact.

Sri Lanka which successfully contained pandemic from March 2020 when the first local COVID 19 patient was detected in the country up to around September in the same year, but has been remained with a mistaken belief that we were out of the woods. The complacency on the part of the authorities prevented them from being vigilant on the situation and random checks, an important measure in containing epidemics, especially in places where large number of people work or gather, was forgotten.

It was only in early October that our self-deception was exposed with over thousand persons infected with the coronavirus being reported in the first week of October from a single apparel factory in Minuwangoda.  That was the beginning of the so-called second wave of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka. 

Then again when the daily numbers of patients decreased from around 1000 to about 200 in April this year, the warnings by the health authorities to impose limited restrictions during the Sinhala and Hindu New Year holidays were ignored, which resulted in another spike or the so-called third wave. The daily tally then fluctuated from 200 to 3500 and to 1500 and now again to 3000.

Nevertheless, the official numbers are a far cry from the reality and we are deceiving ourselves. The numbers in fact do not represent the total population of the country, but only a small group that had been subject to PCR tests. This applies to any country, except for China where the total population of certain cities is being tested within a particular period of time. Therefore it is obvious that we are misreading the situation with these official figures.
The real situation on the ground could only be construed with the number of COVID related deaths and the sights of some major hospitals where beds are running out for pandemic hit patients.Two to three patients share beds in ICUs and medical wards in those hospitals while hundreds more patients lie on mats on the floor. It is said that so many bodies of those died of COVID 19 and other diseases are now being kept in each morgue cooler, as the death toll is surging daily. 

Both the State and the people have to take the responsibility for this situation. Despite the State is mainly responsible for the healthcare of the people, including imparting awareness among them and lead them on the right direction, it cannot fulfil its responsibility without the conscious support of the people. More than 90% of the people including those who boast to be educated do not seem to be serious in their behaviour. Hence a health conscious person has to wage an immense struggle to keep him/herself one metre away from others in public places – or to maintain the accepted social distance to prevent the virus from spreading from one person to another.

Lethargy in the public sector and indifference of the authorities towards the plight of the people worsens the situation. While the whole world is banking on the vaccination to be free from COVID 19, sometimes people are sent to pillar to post in Sri Lanka for vaccination. For instance, authorities through media had announced on July 31 a list of vaccination centres where the much sought-after second dose of AstraZeneca would be given from August 1. However, no vaccination took place as announced in some places and the authorities were not courteous to put up at least a handwritten notice informing it to the public. In some places where it had been announced that the vaccination would be conducted throughout that week, doses were made available only for one or two days. Meanwhile, some new centres were set up but without properly and officially informing people. Army-run centres were very orderly and army personnel were very helpful, but it had been reported that they were not provided with sufficient jabs.

COVID-19 prevention is a life and death struggle and it could only be won by a concerted effort by the government, officialdom and the people.