General Shavendra Silva, Head of the National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO), Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Army, together with several Senior Officers of relevance to the project undertook an inspection tour of the country’s biggest Army-improvised COVID-19 Hospital in Seeduwa yesterday morning (8). We expect to open this state-of-the art facility centre shortly in Seeduwa with the express objective of giving the best emergency healthcare to affected Sri Lankans free of charge,” General Shavendra Silva remarked. This improvised new COVID-19 hospital in Seeduwa has been equipped with Army-produced 1200 beds and we will primarily have 5000 beds ready, and the target is to increase it to 10,000 beds around the country within the next couple of days. The military has already added more beds to the hospital capacity, intermediate care centres and provided even ICU beds, having established the ICUs by the Army itself. Out of some 86,000 beds in island-wide state hospitals, initially we used only about 5000 beds since capacity for contingencies like COVID-19 is minimal, General Shavendra Silva was quoted saying.

Source: The Nation May 08, 2021 13:52 UTC