Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said that there is no shortage of medicines in the hospitals as stated and that medicines can be issued without any problem, but the situation in practice in the hospitals is quite different from that. The Government Medical Officers’ Association says that the clinics are not issuing medicine in limited amounts to the patients.
Dr. Prasad Colomboge, a member of the operating committee of the association, says that the question has now arisen whether the hospitals have the ability to issue medicines or not.
Colombage says that the medicines that were previously issued for a period of one month have now been limited to two weeks and due to the shortage of medicines in the hospitals, the doctors have had to prescribe them to be bought from outside.
He mentions that this kind of situation has arisen due to financial, transportation and dollar shortages faced by drug suppliers and according to the current situation, the price of drugs has increased by three to four times.
