5.13 Health services for specific populations

School dental services are handled by the Oral Health Unit of the FHB. The DDG/DS of the division coordinates with this Unit to upgrade the dental services delivered by dental therapists to the children through the school dental clinics.

5.13 Health services for specific populations

The Sri Lankan health system has a special focus on delivering health care to specific populations. Plantation sector employees, internally displaced people, refugees, the prison community and slum dwellers are not adequately captured by the mainstream health system. The policy on health services in the plantation sector addresses the health issues of this population, which comprises the largest group under this category.

During the colonial era, it was the responsibility of the estate management to provide for the health needs of this community. With the Land Reform law brought about in 1970, the Sri Lankan government took more responsibility for the plantation sector. Since then, many of the plantation sector hospitals have been taken over by the provincial ministries of health and the necessary mechanisms put in place to integrate these into the mainstream health system by providing the necessary HR and the other resources. Subsequent governments have continued upgrading the infrastructure facilities of estate hospitals and also improved the sanitary facilities in the estates (National Cancer Control Program, 2018).

Indigenous communities in Sri Lanka live in semi-evergreen dry monsoon forests. Due to immigration and colonization, the distinctive characteristics of their culture have changed. But like all Sri Lankans, these Indigenous people have full access to the free state health services of Sri Lanka (Institute of Policy Studies, 2017).

Prison medical services are under the purview of a DDG Medical Services of the Ministry of Health, and the prison hospitals are administered by a medical director. The International Committee of the Red Cross helped to develop prison hospitals with the consensus of this Directorate. The National Programme for Tuberculosis Control and Chest Diseases runs its screening programmes in prisons because inmates are considered a high-risk group for TB. Similarly, the National STD/AIDS Control Programme has been carrying out screening programmes on HIV and other STIs on inmates since 2005. Apart from screening, life skills-based education and health promotion programmes are carried out in prisons (Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, 2017b).