The Maligawatte Kidney Research and Transplant Centre (KRTC) will be opened by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday (14), following a lengthy dispute between the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) and the Health Ministry. The Centre has a bed strength of 111 and the capacity to hold twenty dialysis machines.

Sources in the Health Ministry said yesterday (11), the first phase of the opening would be the dialysis unit of the KRTC. It has a bed strength of about sixty and for starters only ten dialysis machines. The number would increase later on, he said. The KRTC has four theatres – three major operating theatres and one for minor operations.

One floor has been temporarily outsourced to the Dental Institute as an OPD as the Institute’s OPD is undergoing repairs at present. There is an administrative floor and a floor which houses the blood bank, scanning and X-ray rooms and two floors of wards, he said. The Centre which has been constructed at a cost of Rs. 450 million, would function under the National Hospital.

The Health Ministry spokesman said the Centre which was completed in December last year, was scheduled to be opened to the public in early January. However, due to a dispute between the GMOA and the Health Ministry regarding its ownership, the opening date of the newly constructed KTRC was postponed indefinitely. The Health Ministry intends it to be handed over to the Colombo Medical Faculty while the GMOA insisted that it should function under the Ministry itself.

The tussle ended with the President’s intervention. He maintained the KRTC had been built for the public and not for various factions to be claiming ownership, they said. The opening which was scheduled for the first week of November, was postponed owing to the President’s visit to Nepal.