ECONOMYNEXT- Police are investigating whether the prisoner who fell to his death from the 8th floor of the Negombo hospital committed suicide the Police Media Division said.
The 36-year-old man from North Kaduruwana who was imprisoned over drug charges is being described as a heroin addict and was admitted to Negombo hospital on Sunday for a PCR test.
Police say that the man had shown symptoms of COVID 19.
Police said that they are awaiting the post-mortem report to know the exact cause of death and find out whether he had been infected with COVID-19.
With the emergence of the new cluster that sprung from the Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Kandakadu which has yielded a total of 519 new coronavirus patients the link between drug addicts and COVID 19 is the focus of the authorities.
The first of that large cluster was an inmate who was transferred to the Welikada Prison was tested positive last week.
Earlier this week, the Commander of the Army, Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva said that part of a military-run quarantine centre in Kandakadu has now been turned into a separate hospital to treat the COVID 19 positive inmates.
“These are recovering drug addicts and they have to be treated in a different way as they are not like normal patients. We feel it is best to look after them here,” he told reporters. (Colombo/July14/2020)
Reported by Imesh Ranasinghe