By Saman Indrajith

State Ministry of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals has failed to follow the action plan for pharmaceutical procurement approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, the First Report of the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) reveals.The report was presented to Parliament on Friday by Prof. Tissa Vitarana.The COPA has also observed that the Ministry has failed to maintain the required temperature in the stores owned by the Medical Supplies Division and stored medical supplies in the corridors there as well as in hospitals.The COPA report says the Ministry has purchased certain drugs from the local market at a huge additional cost. Those purchases were made without estimates.

The Ministry has also issued substandard medical supplies to patients, and it does not have a system to find out if a drug has failed a quality test, the COPA says in its report.

“The Ministry also does not have a system to check samples of all the medicines purchased and there is also a propensity for supplies to expire,” the COPA has said, adding that the Ministry tends to purchase branded drugs. It has recommended that purchasing of drugs under trade names be regulated.

“Sri Lanka does not have facilities to check the quality of certain drugs. Therefore, it recommends that a mechanism for checking the quality of each drug be developed, and that the laboratories in the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation and the National Medicines Regulatory Authority should be improved to meet the standards of the World Health Organization,” the COPA said.The COPA has also recommended that medicines should be ordered based on consumption rather than estimates, to minimise waste caused by expiry of drugs. “The Committee emphasised the serious health problems that can result from issuing medicines that have not been registered with the National Medicines Regulatory Authority, and recommended that this be rectified as soon as possible.”