Amban yet to benefit from hospital returned by SLA

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 2003, 17:31 GMT]
The Amban hospital and agrarian services centre in southeast Jaffna, which the Sri Lanka army handed back to the public last month, continue to remain derelict inside the military’s high security zone in the area, residents said. Mr. R. Rajathurai, the President of the Kudathanai Farmers’ Association told TamilNet that the SLA in Amban is refusing to let the agrarian services centre be renovated.

“SLA personnel in Amban tell us that they are yet to get the green light from their headquarters in Palaly to allow the renovation of the centre”, he said.

Kudathanai is a farming village near Amban.

Meanwhile villagers in the area said that hundreds of patients in the Amban-Kudathanai region continue to face numerous hardships because the Deputy Provincial Director of Health Services (DPDHS) has done nothing to restart the Amban hospital the SLA handed back to the public last month.

Jaffna DPDHS office sources said the delay in restarting the Amban hospital was due lack of transport.

However, informed residents in the Amban-Kudathanai region dismissed this as an untenable excuse and attributed the delay to general apathy on the part of the DPDHS in Jaffna.