Sri Lanka health workers from doctors to junior staff have been demonstrating outside their institutions for months over worsening shortages of medicinal supplies and demanding improved facilities.
The HWAC is calling on health employees to fight for the mobilisation of workers to defeat the government’s paying ward plan, which is aimed at wiping out Sri Lanka’s public health system, a fundamental gain won by the working class.
The government’s lockdown is another desperate measure to deal with extreme shortages of fuel and other basic needs produced by worsening collapse of the economy.
Sri Lankan government austerity measures and import bans on surgical equipment, pharmaceuticals and medical essentials have created a health catastrophe.
Repeated struggles in the health sector indicate that the working class will not accept the government’s attack, and is determined to defend its living conditions and social rights.