Wound care in Sri Lanka: our patients deserve better care.

Chronic ulcers are a major problem in health care worldwide [1–5]. Wound care is a much neglected field in Sri Lanka. Care of a wound, and advising and supervising the medical team to carry out the necessary measures in wound care, is a basic duty of a clinician. Wounds are an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the ‘art and science of healing’. Patients with chronic wounds are often shunned by the family, employers and the society. Empathy and compassion should be essential attributes of the wound care team, in addition to a sound scientific knowledge on wound healing. A person with a chronic wound would be happy to see the wound heal. Even the care-giver derives much satisfaction to see a wound-free patient. Much progress has been made in understanding the wound healing process in the last two decades and some of that knowledge has translated into practice by way of advanced dressings and genetically engineered bioproducts. No studies are available from Sri Lanka on the economic burden of chronic ulcers and their sequelae. It has been estimated that in the UK the total annual cost of treatment of leg ulcers is UK £ 230–400 million [6].