Sickening mismanagement

Wednesday, 30 March 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

THE health of a country depends on its health system. With shortages of important drugs repeatedly reported from public hospitals, the Ministry’s move to blacklist Indian suppliers sounds on the surface to be a positive one. However, what are more obscure is why this decision was delayed for so long and how many more blunders it will take for the Health Ministry to put its house in order.

Sri Lanka has long been proud of its public health system. Whatever its shortcomings, the vision of free health has kept basic indicators such as infant mortality, life expectancy and vaccination schemes high, providing the country with a healthy workforce. Despite moderate per-capita income levels and other socioeconomic challenges, the people have had government backing for universal healthcare.

Nonetheless, when equating quality to this field, the picture becomes much less rosy. Drug procurement is a streamlined process with many checks and balances in place. Drug companies are given orders year after year and there is consistency in how these transactions are handled. The State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) and its interconnected bodies would be at fault indeed if it was any other way. When tender boards are called to hand over contracts, the expenses, timeline and standards are all specified. Moreover, these contracts are long-term and are balanced by checks that should happen from the drug procurement authority. If these monitoring mechanisms are not in place, then there is more room for virulent drug companies to send substandard drugs or delay supplies.

Even a surface glance raises questions as to why the Health Ministry along with the CPC did not deal with this issue sooner, especially when chronic drug shortages have been cropping up in the system for many months. The current Minister has been at the helm since the Cabinet reshuffle after the general election, which was almost a year ago, and the order to blacklist drug companies has been given only now.

Another point is that Minister Maithripala Sirisena has decreed that drugs should be bought from other suppliers even at a higher cost under the emergency purchase scheme. It is clear that the blunders of the Health Ministry and its related bodies will end up costing the country extra millions on top of the untold suffering it has already caused by approving substandard medical supplies. These short-term ‘cover up’ schemes are unsustainable and will only cause more hardships for the masses.

It is well known that unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies encourage tenders through greasing the wheels of the system. Used as Sri Lanka is to wastage and corruption, it is obvious that massive mismanagement exists in the health system, so much so that it has become a cancer to the very ideals upon which it was founded. The need for efficient system that does not hinder but increases the efficacy of drug procurement is essential for Sri Lanka to reach sustainable socioeconomic development goals. The crime is a grave one indeed for it puts lives in danger and Sri Lanka will have to certainly put its own health system in order before it can become the ‘wonder of Asia’.