Primary health care reforms will drive a major transformation- Minister

Aiming to deliver higher-quality, more efficient primary health services nationwide, the Ministry of Health and Mass Media, on Saturday (26), briefed Public Health Nursing Officers (PHNOs) on the proposed Primary Care Community Centre (PCCC) project, which will cover the entire country.

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Health and Mass Media Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa chaired the session at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute auditorium.

The Ministry's Primary Healthcare Unit organised the training session.

Under the programme, the Government will establish one PCCC for roughly 10,000 people. In the first phase, it plans to set up 2,000 centres across the island over the next three years. The Ministry plans to establish 100 centres within this year. Each centre will initially operate with an eight-member staff.

Addressing the workshop, the Minister said the initiative is essential to lift the standards of the country's health services. He noted that, to date, policymakers have focused largely on secondary and tertiary hospital development, and that politics once favoured building multi-storey hospital blocks over strengthening primary care. He stressed that Sri Lanka must move beyond that approach and, over the next three years, implement this new programme.