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Sri Lanka is the only country where the government provided health services in conflict areas. “Over 400 doctors including consultant staff have been employed by the government in conflict zones of the north and east,” said Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya, Secretary of the Government Medical Officers' Association. He also added that in similar circumstances in other countries, the governments withdraw from conflict zones and entrust the work to NGOs. Director of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, Dr. Miss Kanagaratnam commenting on the ongoing strike said that the out patient services were not functioning but emergency medical services were being carried out as usual. Health ministry spokesman, Dr. Athula Kahandaliyanage said that the government had paid a special two-year mission allowance only to the doctors going from the south to the north and east. "Only the non-resident doctors are entitled to this special incentive," he emphasised. The government medical officers in Jaffna issuing a statement said, "The government refused to accept our request that these should be granted to all medical officers in the north and east regardless of their ethnicity." Dr. A. Padeniya insisted that the ethnicity of the doctors was not in question with regard to the allowances paid by the government as Sinhala and Tamil doctors were sent from the south. He firmly denied the allegations made on the Tamilnet web site that Tamil doctors were ‘subjected to ethnic discrimination.' However, the Secretary of the GMOA said that they ‘fully support’ the government's endeavour to keep the health services alive in these areas. He said that if the government medical officers in Jaffna had made such allegations, they were false. Earlier, a Cabinet paper presented by the Health Minister John Seneviratne to grant a one-year special allowance to both resident and non-resident doctors working in the war affected areas was rejected by the government. The Secretary to the Health Ministry said that all supplies of drugs and equipment except a few security sensitive drugs such as anaesthetics had been dispatched to the north and east. However he admitted that the facilities available in hospitals in the north and east were not adequate and that the doctors who volunteered to work in war affected areas were compelled to live and work under very poor conditions.
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