SJB MP Eran Wickramaratne says the importation of inferior medicine by way of emergency procurement and non-functioning medical, surgical and other test equipment in hospitals have ruined the public health sector.

Addressing the Media at the Office of the Leader of Opposition on Sunday (6Aug2023), Wickramaratne said that this pathetic situation in the health sector has been further aggravated by the brain drain. Though a doctor’s initial combined salary exceeds Rs.160, 000, the market opportunities available to them are much higher. “Doctors and nurses can earn three times the salary they receive in Sri Lanka, when they work overseas.

“If the current issues that prevail in the entire health sector are to be resolved, the allocation should be increased from the current 1.5% of the GDP to 3% of the GDP in the health and education sectors. An SJB government will invest more on soft infrastructure such as health and education, instead of hard infrastructure that has not generated dividends to the country thus far. Eran also said that an SJB government will rationalise state expenditure through thorough austerity measures and will invest in health and education infrastructure.

On 12th April 2022, the government issued a statement declaring that there is no shortage of medicine or surgical equipment in the state hospitals. On the same day, on ‘Watch Dog’, more than fifty doctors from all over the country spoke and publicly said that the government’s statement is completely false and is misleading the people. Even the Director General of Health Services had admitted that there is a shortage of medicines. Only 10% of the local medicine requirement is produced in the country. The rest is imported from several countries including India, Germany and Switzerland.”

The importation of substandard medicine from India through unregistered suppliers as emergency purchasing aggravated the crisis in the health sector, MP Wickramaratne said. The fact that these drug purchases had been made from a company that is not registered with the National Medicines Regulatory Authority raises serious doubts, he added. Transparency International has filed a case against awarding the contract to an Indian company out of procedure and importing substandard medicine into the country.

The Supreme Court has given the greenlight to hear this case on the basis that there are doubts about the quality and standard of the medicine in question. An interim order has also been given not to re-import these medicines until the case is investigated.

Eran Wickramaratne casting aspersion on the actions taken by the health authorities, said, the government after having declared that there is no money to allocate, has made emergency purchases of medicine at a higher price of about 1000% more than the normal price.

Adding fuel to the fire, the data system of the NMRA got deleted in an unusual manner. The government then tried to hide behind the deletion of data for the lack of medicine. The Colombo University gave a report on the data.