The CT simulation service that cancer patients need before radiation therapy can begin has not functioned properly since late April, and more than 1,000 patients are now waiting for a treatment plan, the Daily Mirror reported.
CT simulation uses a CT scanner to map the exact area to be treated before radiotherapy starts. It sets the radiation fields, beam angles and dose, and shields healthy tissue. Without it, starting radiotherapy is in practice not possible.
With the service down, staff have fallen back on PET scans for planning. Medical sources told the paper this is not the preferred method and risks further complicating the timely delivery of radiation therapy.
Patients who turn to the private sector face costs of roughly Rs. 500,000 to Rs. 1.7 million depending on what is required — out of reach for most families relying on the free health service.
The failure is four and a half months old
This is not a new disruption, and the record is more specific than today’s report suggests.
The Daily Mirror reported on 27 June that the Health Professionals’ Association had warned of a crisis in state radiotherapy services. That account set out a sequence today’s does not repeat:
- The old CT simulation machine stopped working on 29 April 2026.
- A replacement system was installed by 21 May — but sat unused because of a water leak from the roof of the building housing it.
- The technical problems were resolved by 1 June, yet the machine had still not been released for patient use.
So the equipment has been in place since May and working since June. What has kept it idle, on the association’s account, is administrative rather than technical. Association President Ravi Kumudesh urged authorities to activate the machine immediately, put patient need ahead of administrative delay, and adopt a national emergency plan for cancer treatment.
“For cancer patients, time is not just another resource, it is life itself,” he said in June.
Ten weeks later the waiting list has grown from “nearly 1,000” to “more than 1,000”, and the service is still described as not functioning properly.
One discrepancy: today’s report dates the disruption to 28 April, the June report to 29 April. A single day either way does not change the picture, but the two accounts do not match.
Two of five linear accelerators also out
The waiting list is being squeezed from a second direction. Of the five linear accelerators in operation nationally, two were reportedly out of service, sharply cutting capacity even for patients who do have a plan.
That compounds a procurement problem this desk has already documented: the Doctors’ Trade Union Alliance for Medical and Civil Rights says the purchase of new linear accelerators, funded by the Asian Development Bank and the Treasury, has been stalled for close to five years by a dispute between health officials and specialists.
The June report also noted that state radiotherapy is available at only a limited number of centres — Maharagama, Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Batticaloa and Jaffna — so a stoppage at one affects patients islandwide.
Patients at Apeksha Hospital in Maharagama have separately appealed to authorities over shortages of essential drugs, including Neupogen, which the same doctors’ union said was changing hands on the black market at more than 25 times its normal price.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not name the hospital, attributing the account to “a major cancer hospital” and to informed sources. It does not say why the new machine remains unavailable, whether the Health Ministry has responded, or when the service is expected to resume. No verified newsroom other than the Daily Mirror had filed on Wednesday’s report when this article was written; Ada Derana was unreachable, its domain returning a CloudFront block.
