Only 14 specialists for 376,000 victims
Sri Lanka is grappling with a shortage of mental health specialists with only 14 of them being available for the whole country, Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said yesterday.
Addressing a seminar at the Health Education Bureau, Minister de Silva said the situation created a grave impact because some 376, 000 people were known to be suffering from mental illnesses.
The Minister said the problem had been aggravated as doctors did not choose mental health to pursue their higher studies, and therefore the Ministry had decided not to allow doctors to select courses on their own. Instead, the Ministry will determine what courses doctors should follow based on the country's health needs.
He also said 60 percent of doctors who went abroad for post-graduate mental health studies, had not returned to the country. "In future, neither the GMOA nor the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) will be given a chance to select doctors for higher studies in medicine. It will be done by the Health Ministry in keeping with the country's health needs," he said.
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