Changing Lives

In November 2016 an Outpatient Department and Administrative block was opened at Kayts Base Hospital. The hospitals serves a catchment area of 41,000 people from Kayts and its surrounding islands thereby reducing the furthest travel distance to a hospital to 6km for the people of the area versus the 16 kms to the next hospital in Jaffna. Patients from the area were either required to pay for private medical clinics or undertake this longer journey to Jaffna.

The hospital caters to all common conditions and ailments including childbirth, snakebites and influenza. A laboratory, X ray unit and diagnostic facility are also in the works and is scheduled to open in 2018. The original hospital was constructed in the early 1930s and as a result of the decades long war, little or no development of the facilities was undertaken for decades.