The Health Ministry is considering the closure of under-utilised rural hospitals, central dispensaries and peripheral clinics, after a survey revealed that some rural hospitals treat only two to three patients and attend to four to five delivery cases a month.
Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has appointed a committee to prepare a complete census of underused rural hospitals because it has been found that the government has to spend around Rs.150,000 mn a month on salaries, overtime and maintenance work.
The Minister told The Island that the government had been incurring heavy losses because of the obsolete rural hospitals.