• Dire shortage of protective wear
• Health unions write to President
• Blame delayed on Government response

By Maheesha Mudugamuwa With the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases rising at an alarming rate, the safety of health workers islandwide has been compromised by a dire shortage of protective wear, The Sunday Morning learnt. Doctors, nurses, and other frontline health workers across the country are at risk of being infected by the virus, warn health sector unions, unless the Government immediately supplies the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) to hospitals. In the absence of sufficient quantities of gloves, medical masks, respirators, goggles, face shields, gowns, and aprons, the health workers have had to resort to makeshift gear to avoid infection; the effectiveness of which is largely untested. In a startling revelation, the JVP-affiliated All Ceylon Nurses’ Union (ACNU) President S.B. Mediwatte told The Sunday Morning that even the staff at key hospitals had not been provided with the necessary PPE, placing their lives as well as their family members' lives in danger. He added that in addition to the PPEs, the sanitary liquids are also out of stock at almost all hospitals. On Friday (20), the union has written to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, urging the Government to take immediate action to protect medical staff from infection. He blamed government inaction for the shortage of PPE, saying that it had adequate preparation time. “The shortage was there since the first case was reported but so far, the Government has not taken any step to rectify it,” Mediwatte said, pointing out that the lack of urgency by the Medical Suppliers Division (MSD) during the past few weeks to find an alternative to provide PPE is what had created the issue. He also stressed that the healthcare workers rely on PPE to protect themselves and their patients from being infected and infecting others. If not sorted, the shortage would leave doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers dangerously ill-equipped to care for Covid-19 patients. If a healthcare worker was infected, the entire team of healthcare workers that worked alongside the initial worker would also be placed in quarantine, leading to a dire shortage of health workers in addition to the rise in confirmed cases. The first local Covid-19 case was reported from on 11 March. Meanwhile, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has requested the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr. Anil Jasinghe to cut down the routine checkups at all government hospitals to avoid any possible shortage of medical staff in case of them being exposed to the virus. “There were a few cases reported including Ragama Hospital staff and a few doctors who had participated in a meeting where a Covid-19-infected patient was being quarantined. But if such incidents increased, the staff shortage would be inevitable. Therefore, the workload of all medical staff should be cut down and hospitals should be prepared to manage any immediate increase of patients,” GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Naveen de Zoysa told The Sunday Morning. Admitting that there was a shortage of PPE, Dr. de Zoysa said the GMOA together with the Sri Lanka Army were currently preparing gowns and masks for medical staff and would be distributed within the next week. “The most important thing is that the medical staff shouldn’t be overburdened,” he stressed. Highlighting the seriousness of the situation, Dr. de Zoysa stressed that Sri Lanka had only two Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds per 100,000 patients and if the virus spread fast, the country would not be able to manage the number of patients with such a small number of ICU beds. “In Sri Lanka we have around 570,618 ICU beds (in total),” he stressed. “Therefore, it is very important to control the community spreading,” he said, urging the Government to lock down identified high-risk cities to restrict people’s movement and thereby control the spread. According to the GMOA, the high-risk areas include Jaffna, Kegalle, Wennappuwa, etc. “As of now, the situation is under control and manageable with the existing resources and that is why it should not be allowed to spread around the country,” he added. In Sri Lanka, the number of reported cases had grown to 76 as of late last evening with one patient being cured (the female Chinese tourist which was the first identified Covid-19 case in Sri Lanka). However, on 3 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) called on industries and governments to increase manufacturing by 40% to meet the rising global demand. It also warned that severe and mounting disruption to the global supply of PPE – caused by rising demand, panic buying, hoarding, and misuse – is putting lives at risk of being infected by the new coronavirus and other infectious diseases. As of the beginning of this month, WHO had shipped nearly half a million sets of PPE to 47 countries, but supplies are rapidly depleting. Based on WHO modelling, an estimated 89 million medical masks are required for the Covid-19 response each month. For examination gloves, that figure goes up to 76 million, while international demand for goggles stands at 1.6 million per month. Explaining the measures taken by the National Operation Centre for Prevention of Covid-19 to address the current PPE shortage, Military Spokesman Brigadier Chandana Wickramasinghe told The Sunday Morning that the DGHS had assured that all medical staff would be provided with necessary equipment and would be protected.