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Medicines ban to Vanni – denial of humanitarian access to children?

Stocks of many medicines for common childhood ailments like, asthma and epilepsy are at dangerously low levels. Children are being prescribed half the doses only making them come back to hospital with acute illnesses.

When the hospitals contacted Ministry of Health about the shortfall, the Ministry responded saying that they have indeed sent the requested quantities of medicines. The Ministry of Defense in fact is preventing the medicines sent by the Ministry of Health from reaching the hospitals in LTTE areas.

The Table below shows the quantities of some of the medicines requested by the Kilinochchi hospital, the largest hospital in Vanni, serving a population more than 400,000 people. The Table shows what was requested by this hospital for the year 2006, what the hospital has received and the level of the stock at the hospital at present.

Antibiotics, pain management medicine, and surgical material are all in severe shortage. These shortages were acutely felt on 2 January, when more than 50 aerial bombing victims, most of whom are children, arrived from Mannar to Kilinochchi hospital for treatment.

The Security Council Resolution 1612 among other violation against “Children Affected by Armed Conflict (CAAC)” also considers the denial of humanitarian access to children.

Will the Security Council Working Group on CAAC in Sri Lanka discuss this at the upcoming meeting on 8 February?

02 February 2007

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