Health Minister Dr. Keheliya Rambukwella said that over 75 percent of financial issues in the health sector have already been resolved and President Ranil Wickremesinghe has given clear instructions to allocate another Rs.30 billion to the health sector for the next three months.
He was addressing a media briefing attended by top Ministry officials at the Grand Oriental Hotel on Friday. Minister Rambukwella said the total financial requirement of the health sector for the next five months is nearly Rs.65 billion. Of that, the President at Wednesday’s meeting gave instructions to initially release Rs.30 billion for the next three months which is quite sufficient to manage.
The Government has given priority to the health sector. At the discussion with the President, a decision was also taken to amend certain clauses of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) Act to in keeping with present day needs, he said.
He said, “We were given US$ 1 billion by India to overcome the economic crisis. Of that amount, initially US$ 200 million was given to the health sector. Six months later, another US$ 37 million was given.
Therefore, US$ 237 million was given to the health sector under the Indian Credit Line. So far, we have used US$ 207 million to order nearly 600 drugs and we have already received 294 drugs.
The Minister said when 294 drugs are bought, perhaps there may be a quality failure of one particular drug. Minister Rambukwella appealed to the media to be sensitive on issues in the health sector. “In case of an emergency, everybody goes to the nearest Government hospital. Certain sections make a deliberate attempt to destroy the country’s free health sector and create a fear psychosis among people about Government hospitals. I concede that there are shortcomings in the health sector but those are at a manageable level.”
The Minister said certain sections attempt to compare the period from 2015 to 2018 with the current crisis period which is not fair. In 2015, the value of the Dollar was Rs.131.50 and we had US$ 8.2 billion reserves. The Per Capita Income was US$ 4,000 while inflation was below 10 percent and bank interest rates were at a single digit.
The media and intelligent people should realise whether it is fair to make a comparison between the current tenure and period from 2015 to 2018. The entire world had to face the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. When powerful countries faced a catastrophic situation, we controlled the Covid-19 pandemic due to the immense sacrifice by the health sector, he said.
He said at present, there is talk about substandard or low quality drugs. “We should know that such low quality drugs are not manufactured. However, the efficacy of certain drugs may not be up to the expected standards. That is what certain sections attempt to define as low quality drugs.”
Additional Secretary to the Health Ministry Dr. Saman Ratnayake said steps have been taken to overcome the shortage of drugs. At present, an Emergency Procurement Committee has been set up.
Dr. Ratnayake said there were quality failures of drugs from 2015. The amount of such drugs identified in 2015 were (58), 2016 (56), 2017 (93), 2018 (85), 2019 (96), 2020 (77), 2021 (85), 2022 (86) and 2023 (67). Therefore, the quality failures of drugs are a common phenomenon, he added.