The District Hospital Tellippalai
The current status
The District Hospital Tellippalai was built in 1975 as a hospital for basic and regular medical care and included 340 ward beds at that time, thus being the third largest hospital in the Jaffna district. At present the hospital includes the departments gynecology and family planning, internal medicine with diabetology and rheumatology, pediatrics, dentistry, psychiatry, and a cancer ward. In addition the people receive "family doctor" medical care in clinics and specialist clinics.
The catchment area of the hospital includes the Tellippalai region with currently approx. 320,000 people, the annexed cancer ward provides for the entire north province of Sri Lanka with approx. 1,200,000 people.
Unfortunately the hospital was completely destroyed in 1990 in the civil war and thus moved to other buildings in 1991 where medical care has been maintained within a limited scope with the number of beds reduced to about 100. Meanwhile the Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition has decided to rebuild the destroyed hospital and to operate it at the original site.
Some buildings have already been completed, reconstruction of the entire hospital buildings is scheduled for 2006. There are no funds available for furnishing the interior of the new buildings; urgently required equipment such as for the OR, birthing room, blood bank, laboratory, etc., cannot be purchased.
During our visit to Tellippalai in October 2005 we could directly gain an impression of the situation at the District Hospital Tellippalai. While the reconstructed buildings are in an excellent state of repair, the situation in the temporary buildings was shocking. The structural state is extremely bad, the furnishings such as beds, mattresses, cupboards, medical equipment, in a pathetic state. A major problem is also the medical and nursing staff. For example, doctors are recalled from retirement to maintain a semblance of a somewhat normal operation.
After more than 20 years of civil war between Sinhalese and Tamils and about 4 years of a fragile cease-fire accord, the Tsunami disaster struck the country with a severe blow. In addition to the about 70,000 fatalities in the conflict, there were more than 30,000 Tsunami victims. Most of the houses on the Jaffna peninsula are destroyed, the infrastructure (roads, garbage removal, schools, kindergartens, health care institutions, ...) must cope with incessant disruptions.
Since the peripheral hospitals in the Jaffna district do not meet the necessary standards, the university hospital of Jaffna, the only hospital in the region to provide maximum medical care, is hopelessly overcrowded, needing to take on part of the duties from the peripheral hospitals. Consequently the health care situation in the north of Sri Lanka is underdeveloped. A large proportion of the population does not receive adequate medical care.
