{"id":1065,"date":"2026-05-11T05:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T05:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2026-05-11T05:35:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T05:35:00","slug":"dr-nalinda-jayatissa-announces-appointment-of-district-health-coordination-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/2026\/05\/11\/dr-nalinda-jayatissa-announces-appointment-of-district-health-coordination-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa Announces Appointment of District Health Coordination Officers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ministry of Health and Mass Media, under the leadership of Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, has focused its attention on strengthening district-level coordination of health services in order to provide more efficient preventive and curative healthcare services to the public and to minimize shortcomings within the healthcare system.<\/p>\n<p>Accordingly, a Cabinet paper recently submitted by the Minister to appoint a group of Members of Parliament as \u201cDistrict Coordination Officers\u201d covering all districts in the country has now received Cabinet approval.<\/p>\n<p>The primary objective of this initiative is to improve coordination between healthcare institutions operated under the central government and those managed by Provincial Councils, thereby enhancing the efficiency of public healthcare services.<\/p>\n<p>The Minister pointed out that under the previous system, there were practical difficulties in properly identifying local health issues and integrating them into national healthcare plans.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed duties and responsibilities of the appointed District Coordination Officers include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Identifying district-level healthcare needs and prioritizing them with public participation<\/li>\n<li>Assisting in integrating those needs into national and provincial health plans<\/li>\n<li>Strengthening efficient use of resources and improving coordination between sectoral and provincial healthcare institutions<\/li>\n<li>Coordinating the implementation of regional development programmes in line with ministry policies<\/li>\n<li>Identifying priority projects and recommending them to the ministry<\/li>\n<li>Monitoring the progress of ongoing projects and supporting their successful completion within the specified timeframe<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Minister further stated that Sri Lanka\u2019s healthcare system currently operates under a dual administrative structure, consisting of hospitals and healthcare institutions under line ministries as well as those under Provincial Councils.<\/p>\n<p>Although healthcare services are being provided through this system, problems such as lack of district-level coordination, inefficient use of resources, and failure to adequately reflect local needs in national programmes have emerged due to separate administrative structures.<\/p>\n<p>The following Members of Parliament have been proposed as District Coordination Officers for the respective districts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anuradhapura \u2013 Susantha Kumara Navaratne<\/li>\n<li>Badulla \u2013 Ravindra Bandara<\/li>\n<li>Batticaloa \u2013 Kandasamy Prabhu<\/li>\n<li>Colombo \u2013 Najith Indika<\/li>\n<li>Ampara \u2013 M. M. Sugath Ratnayake<\/li>\n<li>Galle \u2013 Nishantha Samaraweera<\/li>\n<li>Gampaha \u2013 Dharmapriya Wijesinghe<\/li>\n<li>Hambantota \u2013 Satharuwan Madarasinghe<\/li>\n<li>Jaffna \u2013 S. Sri Bhavanandarajah<\/li>\n<li>Kegalle \u2013 R. M. Samantha Ranasinghe<\/li>\n<li>Kalutara \u2013 Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe<\/li>\n<li>Kandy \u2013 Danura Dissanayake<\/li>\n<li>Kurunegala \u2013 Dr. Jagath Gunawardena<\/li>\n<li>Matale \u2013 Deepthi Niranjani Wasalage<\/li>\n<li>Matara \u2013 Lal Premanath<\/li>\n<li>Monaragala \u2013 H. M. Sarath Kumara<\/li>\n<li>Nuwara Eliya \u2013 T. Bandara<\/li>\n<li>Puttalam \u2013 Gayan Janaka<\/li>\n<li>Ratnapura \u2013 Dr. Janaka Senarathna<\/li>\n<li>Trincomalee \u2013 Roshan Akmeemana<\/li>\n<li>Vanni \u2013 Selvathambi Thilakanathan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Ministry stated that the main objective of this new system is to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services provided to the public across Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ministry of Health and Mass Media, under the leadership of Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, has focused its attention on strengthening district-level coordination of health services in order to provide more efficient preventive and curative healthcare services to the public and to minimize shortcomings within the healthcare system. Accordingly, a Cabinet paper recently submitted by the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1067,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions\/1067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}