Emergency medical services in Sri Lanka

The Pre-Hospital Care Committee is part of the Trauma Secretariat [1] of the Sri Lanka Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition and was established following the 2004 tsunami.

Currently, EMTs and Pre-Hospital personnel are currently working in four distinct areas: Fire Brigades, Hospitals, Community Based Organizations, and Private Services.

All Sri Lankan EMTs are trained on international EMS standards adopted by the Trauma Secretariat of the Ministry of Healthcare & Nutrition.

Some examples of the skills of an EMT include: - Airway management with the use of oral and nasal airways - Automatic External Defibrillators - Extrication of Trauma Patients with spinal injuries - Medical & Trauma Patient Assessments - Assisting patients with prescribed medications (NTG [gtn], aspirin, salbuterol inhalers) - Spinal Immobalization - Assessment of Vital Signs - Assisting with unexpected emergency deliveries during transport EMT-Level 3: Level 3 EMTs or EMT-Intermediate Level is a more advanced professional level of pre-hospital care providers.

[5] In 2015 India offered a gift to Sri Lanka in order to mark Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit Harsha De Silva proposed an emergency medical service after personal experiences with short comings in the Sri Lankan system as well as the urging of doctors.

It was also backed by Wickremesighe resulting in India's world reputed GVK Emergency Response Institute offering training to hundreds of Sri Lankan EMTs and Paramedics as well as donating Ambulances and granting a 7.5 million dollar grant to start the service in Colombo and Galle as a first step.

[8] By implementing the ILCOR approved standards, doctors, nurses, and EMS providers in Sri Lanka now have access to internationally accredited certifications and evidenced based education.Textbook: The Ministry of Healthcare & Nutrition's Trauma Secretariat, with Medical Teams International, has published the first Emergency Medical Technician textbook in Sri Lanka in both the Singhalese and Tamil languages.

Previously developed textbooks were reviewed and found ineffective because they were direct translations of North American texts and not specific to the South Asia region.