Healthcare Sector Opportunities

Sri Lanka has made tremendous progress in maternal and child health as a low-middle-income country, addressing infectious diseases. The nation has a parental mortality rate of 33.8 per 100,000 live births, an infant mortality rate of 9 per 1,000 live births, and a 75.3-year-old life expectancy, leading indicators in South Asia. The public health system offers 50% of medical treatment, 95% of hospitalisations, and 99% of the country's preventive care needs. Therefore, to benefit most Sri Lankans, enhancing the efficiency and quality of the healthcare system is essential.  (Figure Source: World Bank)

The newly elected government is helping to support the implementation of the country's National Health Development Plan, to overcome the above-mentioned challenges, which, through technical and financial assistance, strengthens the health sector to meet upper-middle-income country expectations. These actions aim to improve the public health system's performance standards and encourage it to respond better to the challenges of starvation and non-communicable disease. The government will meet such an objective by implementing a wide range of projects:

• The National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo will be upgraded to the international standard where patients will receive services including cardiology services, emergency, and complex treatment and operations.
•   One selected hospital in every district will be fully-equipped and upgraded to a level similar to that of the National Hospital at present in terms of medical treatment, surgical theatres, and laboratory facilities.
•    All other hospitals island-wide will be upgraded by providing adequate doctors, nursing staff, laboratory technicians, drugs, and laboratory facilities. The government will allocate all out-patient services to these hospitals, and a referral system will be established to forward patients to the relevant hospitals.
•   Modern innovations such as E-health and Telemedicine will be introduced for patients to obtain diagnoses and treatment conveniently and to prevent crowding at hospitals.
•   An online psychological counselling service with a 24-hour toll-free mobile hotline will be established under the Health Ministry to maintain the quality of the health of the people. Digitally enabled healthcare and wellness has rapidly evolved beyond a global trend in the healthcare landscape – particularly in more advanced economies.
•  Public health and nursing staff will be provided with modern technology and equipment to enable them to offer their services more conveniently.
•   A system will be developed to drive health policies and planning by research and audit data, for the betterment of patient care.

The project supports the Sri Lankan government to meet the adult population to raise awareness of non-communicable disease risk factors and provide early detection and management of chronic diseases. Such development promotes the enhancement of quality of care for pregnant women and children under the age of five and seeks to encourage prompt and quality care for all emergencies and accidents. The plan will support policy development and roll-out, requirements, and improvement of various support structures.

OSL Take: Sri Lanka’s health sector is engaged in constant upgrading, and the Sri Lankan government is also engaged in introducing new technologies in par with the latest international trends to the country. Therefore, there are ongoing business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s health sector. Foreign health companies could explore opportunities for business in Sri Lanka.

VBS/AT/16122019/Z_TB2