Rambukwella, after NCM defeat, says health sector has improved despite crisis

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By Editor_1
Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella addressing a press briefing at the Presidential Media Centre on July 2, 2023. The minister who survived a no confidence motion against him on Friday (Sept 8,2023) said health sector has improved under him despite an unprecedented economic crisis - PMD
By Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella who survived a no confidence motion last week said the health sector has improved under him despite an unprecedented economic crisis.

After a raft of unexplainable deaths including youth and kids, alleged lower quality drugs, and prolonged emergency drug purchases, the opposition parties brought a no confidence motion against Rambukwella last month though it was taken for debate only last week.

The trust vote against him was defeated in the 225-member Parliament with 113 MPs voting against it while 73 in favour. Rambukwella’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has the parliament majority.

Lack of solutions so far for the health crisis including “sorrowful incidents that are reported from hospitals day by day are deaths and impairments caused due to the use of drugs which are either substandard or are low in quality, and not appointing the Board of Directors of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority” were some of the key charges levelled by the opposition in the no confidence motion against Rambukwella.

The health minister, however, giving what he said was from official yearly figures from 2015 said the health sector has improved in all the aspects.

However, many health experts have said the crisis is acute to a level that some drugs are not available in hospitals and some state hospitals publicly announce the unavailability of drugs.

Health service is provided free of charge to the public and it is struggling to grant services since the economic crisis hit the country with the island nation defaulting on its sovereign debts last year.

But the minister says otherwise.

“There are a lot of issues in the health sector. But they have reduced (compared to the last few years). “These are done by politically motivated people,” Rambukwella, 68, told reporters in Colombo at a media briefing to explain that most of the opposition charges against him were based on false facts.

He rejected a UNICEF report which said 2.3 million children do not have enough to eat in the face of economic crisis and higher inflation.

“The UNICEF report was wrong… I challenged UNICEF because they used 2016 numbers for 2022. The malnutrition has reduced in 2022,” he said adding that most of the charges opposition have levelled are not new, but have been there throughout during successive governments.

“This is a planned campaign against what we are doing,” he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in a January 2023 report said Sri Lanka was facing an unprecedented health crisis with stocks of several essential medicines at critically low levels and many Sri Lankans were losing access to care as the ongoing economic crisis takes a severe toll on the health sector.

“Sri Lanka’s economic crisis is rapidly turning into a health crisis amid growing shortages of basic drugs and medical supplies. The annual budget estimate for importing medicines and surgical consumables is 300 million US dollars; so far only 80 million US dollars is available for 2023 through donors,” the WHO said in the report

“As of January 2023, Sri Lanka still faces a funding gap of 220 million US dollars to import essential medicines and supplies and there is an urgent need for this gap to be addressed with the help of partners,” it elaborated.

At the ground level, people have reported of unprecedented crises in the health sectors including lack of drugs, lower of substandard quality drugs, lack of healthcare workers who have been migrating in search of greener pasture in the wake of high taxes, and reports of a number of deaths after administering anaesthetic drugs.

The death of two women, including a pregnant woman, at a Teaching Hospital in Sri Lanka’s central town of Peradeniya after being administered an anaesthetic drug, as well as the death of a 21-year-old girl while being treated for stomach ailment, have led to controversy in the health sector.

More than 20 patients who underwent surgery at two eye hospitals developed various complications due to questionable quality Prednisolone eye drops brought from India, and some patients have complained that the surgery left them completely visually impaired.

-economynext.com

 

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