Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health and Mass Media is rolling out five new advanced mammography machines at major state hospitals to expand early-detection capacity for breast cancer, Newswire reported on Saturday. The five units are valued at Rs.765 million in total — Rs.153 million each — and are being procured through the Health System Enhancement Project with funding support from the Asian Development Bank.
The new machines will be installed at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Karapitiya National Hospital in Galle, Kandy National Hospital, Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital and the Apeksha Hospital cancer specialty centre in Maharagama. Two additional used machines will go to the Trincomalee and Nuwara Eliya District General Hospitals to address urgent local need, the ministry said.
Sri Lanka currently operates 16 mammography machines across the government hospital network. The seven additions take the total to 23. The ministry said long waiting lists — running from several weeks to several months — persist at existing mammography services because of high demand and limited capacity at the small number of teaching and general hospitals equipped to provide the screening.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in Sri Lanka. The ministry framed the rollout as a measure to identify abnormalities at an earlier stage and to strengthen follow-up treatment pathways through the public system.
The expansion sits alongside a separate cancer-screening capacity push announced in May, when Cabinet approved the acquisition of 18 colposcopy machines for cervical cancer screening at state hospitals. The Apeksha Hospital — the country’s only dedicated cancer treatment institution — also recently received four new consultant haematologist appointments to address blood-cancer workload pressures. Health Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has separately set out the Commonwealth cancer-control plan Sri Lanka co-developed in Geneva in May.
The ADB-backed Health System Enhancement Project is the same multi-year facility funding several hospital-equipment and primary-care upgrades across the country.
Sources: Newswire.
