- Deliveries expected by February
Sri Lanka has so far only received 80 drugs out of 467 approved orders under the Indian Line of Credit (LOC), according to the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC).
The SPC expects approved orders to be delivered in January and February next year.
Speaking to The Sunday Morning, SPC General Manager Dinusha Dasanayake said: “We are getting stocks gradually, but the situation is not that good because when we receive some items, some other items go out of stock. As of today (23), we have already received 80 pharmaceutical items under the Indian credit line. We received approval for 467 and out of that, 80 have already been received. There are some confirmed deliveries in January and February.”
The SPC MD stressed that not all drugs could be purchased under the Indian LOC as some drugs had to be imported from Europe and other countries.
“We can’t get everything through the Indian credit line. There are some items we have to import from Europe and some other countries. For those items, we face the dollar issue and the rupee issue; in order to purchase dollars, we need rupees,” he explained.
Dasanayake said that some orders had already been lined up with funds from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). “If we have sufficient funds for procurement, the goods will come. We have received $ 80 million from the AIIB and $ 100 million from the ADB,” he added.
Commenting on the prices, the SPC MD said that only the exchange rate fluctuations would be absorbed into the prices.
“The SPC brand still remains the cheapest. We don’t opt for strategic price increases. We are just absorbing exchange rate fluctuations,” Dasanayake said.
According to the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), over 150 essential drugs are out of stock while hospitals around the country are struggling to manage with low stocks of 14 life-saving drugs.
GMOA Spokesman Dr. Chamil Wijesinghe stressed that only the emergency care services were functioning properly at present due to the shortages of medicines and other medical equipment.
Drug shortages had severely affected routine surgeries in all hospitals and as well as OPD services, he stressed.
– By Maheesha Mudugamuwa