BMJ  2004;328:1497 (19 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7454.1497-a

Letter

Health in South Asia

Sri Lanka needs to build on its strengths and gains

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Bhutta et al and the World Bank highlight Sri Lanka as a model in achieving exceptional health status with comparatively low investments.1 2 However, recent data show a stagnation of gains (such as an increase in infant mortality from 15.9/1000 in 1998 to 17/1000 in 2001) and emerging challenges.1 3 This requires the model to be suitably modified to lower the preventable morbidity and mortality, while responding to the emerging challenges. The following examples show that Sri Lanka is deviating in an ad hoc manner from the successful model of preventive programmes at a relatively equitable grassroots level.

The preventive sector is progressively underfunded, rather than strengthened to meet the epidemic of non-communicable diseases. From 1993 to 1999 expenditure on preventive and public health declined from 10% (of total health expenditures) to 6%, and expenditure dedicated to the curative sector has been maintained around 44% to 47%.4

Human resource development . . . [Full text of this article]

Saroj Jayasinghe, associate professor

Faculty of Medicine, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka sarojoffice@yahoo.com


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Wrong reference
Sisira H Siribaddana
bmj.com, 19 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Regarding reference 3
Saroj Jayasinghe
bmj.com, 19 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Re: Wrong reference
Jay Ilangaratne
bmj.com, 19 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Stagnation health status or not?
Saroj Jayasinghe
bmj.com, 20 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Doctors can do a better job than politiciians
Tissa Wijeratne
bmj.com, 24 Jun 2004 [Full text]
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