Save the medical sector first

Nearly 500 Sri Lankan doctors including specialists have left the country within the last eight months of this year, some informing and others without informing the Health Ministry, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) says. They further pointed out that 52 doctors including young specialists have been served letters of vacation of post within the last two months, as they have left the country without informing the higher authorities.
The Association’s media spokesman Dr. Chamil Wijesinghe told media that around 50 more medical professionals have sent in their letters of resignation during the same two months. The incidents have been reported according to the GMOA from both urban and rural areas as well as from main hospitals in cities and peripheral hospitals. The trend is not limited to the young junior doctors, but also extends to the senior professionals as well. No doubt, this is a serious trend, which, if not arrested sensibly and swiftly, the entire health sector would collapse. 

The Association attributes the problem to the economic meltdown that has currently engulfed the country. Dr. Wijesinghe points out various issues that have affected the profession as well the professionals’ personal wellbeing which in turn have caused severe frustration among them. In fact, the fuel shortage that had brought the country to near standstill, is one of the main issues that made lives of the patients at hospitals as well as the staff that are attached to those medical institutions extremely difficult. Media reported that several deaths due to inability of the patients’ relatives to find vehicles to take their loved ones to hospitals. Also there were reports that while patients were waiting in rural hospitals for the doctors to attend to them, doctors in question have been waiting in petrol queues!

Doctors had to launch protests demanding fuel for their vehicles. Before April, it was reported that some rural hospitals had to function with candle light during power cuts. And when fuel issues cropped up, shortage of medicines and other issues have begun to affect the patients, that in turn, makes the doctors’ duty also far more arduous. Doctors press the authorities to treat the health sector as the most essential service, while there are other sectors such as water supply and power generation too reasonably clamouring for priority. And, when there are no solutions in sight, their commitment tapers off gradually and the frustration would fill the gap.

The shortage of medicines caused by the unprecedented economic crisis in the country could soon cause unnecessary deaths, medical professionals warn. Already hospitals are forced to postpone life-saving procedures such as surgeries for their patients due to the severe dearth of essential drugs.

In March, Teaching Hospital in Peradeniya which serves a population of around 2.4 million people in the Central province, suspending all routine surgeries for a few days owing to shortage of anaesthetic drugs and other essentials required for surgeries. Days ago, doctors lamented that some hospitals lack medicines and surgical equipment needed for caesarean surgeries which cannot be postponed. Some doctors termed this situation as ‘death sentence’ to the patients. It has been customary for the doctors now to hand over the prescriptions to the relatives of the patients to buy the medicines for both the out patients and in-house patients.

Sri Lanka imports more than 80% of its medical supplies, according to some sources, but with foreign currency reserves running out because of the crisis, essential medications are fast disappearing from the shelves and the healthcare system is on the verge of collapse. The desperate doctors make open pleas to the general public not to fall ill or get into accidents as the crisis leaves country’s health care system suffers from short of drugs and other vital supplies. Some doctors have turned to social media to try to get donations of medical supplies or the funds to buy them.

Meanwhile, the prices of medicines are going through the roof, in March this year, the then State Minister of Health Channa Jayasumana announced that prices of medicinal drugs will be increased by 29% with the approval of the Price Control Committee of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA). However, the prices went up more than the percentage the minister prescribed. The surge in prices did not stop at that. On April 30, the State Minister Jayasumana who had been promoted as the Health Minister by the political crisis caused by the economic crisis issued a Gazette Extraordinary, allowing a price increase on a total of 60 varieties of medicinal drugs. Days ago, the country saw another hike in prices of essential surgical items such as stents used in surgeries for heart patients. 

Though the economic crisis is a man-made catastrophe which has been termed by the UNHRC as “economic crime” for which someone has to take the responsibility or be held responsible, it is the patients and their relatives who are now paying the price. 

The concerned people must realize that this is a far more important issue than strengthening their political parties or appointing more and more ministers and State ministers at this most critical juncture.