Even when there was no dollar crisis, there was always a medicine shortage – Channa

MP Prof. Channa Jayasumana has attributed the ongoing medicinal shortage in the country to the dollar crisis, and a lack of communication among the relevant authorities.

Speaking during today’s (Nov 29) Parliamentary session, Prof. Jayasumana stated that while the primary cause for the prolonged medical shortage Sri Lanka currently facing is the ongoing dollar crisis, it is not the only reason.

He claimed that another contributory factor to the issue was the lack of coordination between the relevant health authorities within the country.

“Only half of the hospitals are included in the existing database, therefore we can never have a clear picture of how much of which medicine is required at what time. The data we receive is never in real-time, it is always different to the actual figures. When decisions are made based on such information, it creates the need to make such sudden purchases”, he said in this regard.

Thus, Jayasumana called for the immediate implementation of a database in which all hospitals and other relevant health authorities and offices are included, affirming that this was the only way to resolve the medicinal shortage.

“No matter how much we talk about this issue, there will be no solution to it until such system is implemented. Even when there was no dollar crisis, there was never a point where there did not exist a medicinal shortage in Sri Lanka,” the former State Minister of Pharmaceuticals said, urging that the said database be implemented island-wide by the end of this year.