The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) warned that due to the lack of required medicines, there is a risk that kidney transplant operations will be stopped completely in certain hospitals including the National Nephrology Specialised Hospital in Polonnaruwa.
Speaking to the media yesterday (26), GMOA Secretary, Dr. Haritha Aluthge, claimed that under the guise of this situation, the Ministry of Health is preparing to buy emergency drugs once again and that there is a reasonable doubt as to whether the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) is deliberately creating such an environment.
“Due to the lack of drugs, kidney transplant surgeries have been stopped in hospitals including at the National Nephrology Specialised Hospital. It is heard that some of these drugs are completely out of stock. In this situation, the NMRA is preparing for an emergency purchase of drugs. If such an emergency drug purchase takes place, we know that a medicine vial worth Rs. 200,000 will have to be purchased for Rs. two million. In that case, the patients will have to give up these surgeries,” he said.
He also alleged that the NMRA is planning to make these emergency purchases due to the failure of the Authority to pay the money owed to the registered drug suppliers which has led to the registered suppliers withdrawing from the import of drugs. “There are one or two registered suppliers to import certain medicines. In such cases, if they (NMRA) have failed to pay those suppliers for a period of two years, they will leave the supply process. Then, the NMRA can get an unregistered supplier to import medicines with less quality at a higher price,” he said.
The GMOA raised these concerns in the wake of many parties alleging that several deaths that occurred recently have been reportedly due to the alleged use of substandard pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that are said to have been imported without following the due quality checking procedure in the recent past, by the authorities, particularly the Ministry and the NMRA.
However, in response to such allegations, the Ministry Secretary Janaka Sri Chandraguptha had told the media last week that there are provisions under the NMRA Act for importing drugs without the approval of expert committees, in cases of emergencies.
“The Board of Directors of the NMRA has the authority to grant permission for the importation of drugs that are not approved by the expert committees, but, they do so only after studying all the facts such as whether the relevant drugs are registered in other countries, are there registrations with the relevant organisations such as the World Health Organisation, and are there any cases of patients suffering complications due to the use of such drugs.”
Meanwhile, it was reported that Sri Lankan pharmaceutical firms are finding it difficult to bid for tenders due to their finances being undermined as they are billions of Rupees in arrears, according to an industry official.
Several attempts made by The Daily Morning to contact Chandraguptha, NMRA Chairman Prof. S.D. Jayaratne and NMRA Director General and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Vijith Gunasekera proved futile.
Several attempts made by The Daily Morning to contact Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, Chandraguptha, NMRA Chairman Prof. S.D. Jayaratne and NMRA Director General and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Vijith Gunasekera proved futile.
When contacted, an official of the National Institute for Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation declined to comment on the matter saying that only the Director of the Institute, who was not available at the time, has been permitted to speak to the media.