US Govt. pledges support to develop Sri Lanka's health sector
The Government of United States of America has pledged its support to strengthen the bilateral relations between USA and Sri Lanka.
The Acting American Ambassador to Sri Lanka Andrew Mann during a meeting with Health and Indigenous Minister Dr. Rajitha Senarathne recently expressed his Government's unstinting cooperation towards the development of health sector in Sri Lanka. He also said that the United States and Sri Lanka had been maintaining cordial relations for many years and the US government is proud of Sri Lanka which had achieved high health care indicators in South Asia.
Minister Senarathne pointed out to the US envoy that since successive governments had striven to develop the free health services in the country, Sri Lanka had been able to have impressive health indicators among the countries in South Asia.
Dr. Senarathne stressed that Indigenous Medicine sectors would be developed to cater to the medical needs of the people and health tourism would be duly promoted in order to attract more tourists into the country.
The Minister confirmed that the government would implement the National Medicinal Drug Regulatory Authority Act within 100 days.
Director General of Health Services Dr.Palitha Mahipala was present.
The minister stated this while attending a meeting recently at the auditorium of the Ministry of Education which was held with the participation of all the national school principals. The minister emphasized at this occasion that the assistance of all including the teachers, parents, children, psychologists and the scholars of the country is important in order to implement the just and correct decisions taken transparently with regard to the education of the country and the principals must act without degrading their profession when they perform the duties of school admissions.
Since there is a surplus of nearly 8000 teachers in the system at the moment while a shortage is prevailing for some subjects, measures will be taken shortly to balance properly the distribution of teachers, he said. The minister also mentioned that the recommendations of the teacher transfer boards will be implemented without giving any opportunity for destroying the family units of the teachers as it happened due to irregular teacher transfers happened so far. And also the steps will be taken to establish the colleges of education so as to fill the vacancies available for different subjects in the future, the minister further stated.
The State Minister of Education P. Radhakrishnan, Secretary of Education Mr. Upali Marasinghe, The Secretary of the State Ministry of Education Mr. D. Nanayakkara, the Director of National Schools Mr. Ranjith Chandrasekara and several senior officials participated in this occasion.
