Is it not a national disaster when terminally ill patients don’t have drugs?
February 18 was a disastrous day at the Maharagama Cancer Hospital. Terminally ill patients were told, “We do not have medicine to give you.” The impact of the news had both the doctors and the patients shaken. Do we have the right to ask or do we go down on our knees and pray to the divinity?
Doctors were distressed as they had to disappoint their patients who rely on them. They had no alternative but to tell them the pharmacy had no stocks, so come on another day.
There were well over 600 patients that clinic day at the OPD section alone on the 1st and 2nd floors of the hospital. They had come from all over the country. The writer got number 94 in the blood test queue having arrived at 7 a.m. Others had stayed overnight in temporary abodes to join the queue earlier.
Three hours later the blood report in hand, already worn out, we stayed attentive to names being called to enter the clinic. The attendants, nurses and doctors are compassionate. Their patience and understanding are amazing. Four doctors per unit in three small connected rooms see patients. The doctors are already armed with individual patient files from the record room. It is very organised. The rooms hardly have space to move with 12-15 patients at any given time. They all have different stages of cancer. That particular day was for the adult category thus limiting the crowd.
Shortage of medicinal drugs for the terminally ill is a national disaster. Why does the Ministry of National Disaster Management remain inactive? Is air lifting medicines for hospitals impossible? Can our national carrier SriLankan Airlines transport medicines at all for an emergency? After all it is absorb- ing all the losses that are reported in the media.
Does the Health Ministry consider human suffering as not part of its concerns? Is remedial action not impossible? Given the compassion and generosity of the ordinary people of Sri Lanka it is indeed possible. The Government authorities should act immediately to bring down the medicines and restore the supply at this hospital. They should simply make urgent arrangements to import the medicines on priority basis. They could then make a public appeal to the private sector businesses and the wealthy to generously foot the bill, which they will happily do.
The next step would be to admonish those employees who failed to maintain the proper stock level. This appears like a serious administrative lapse by the management. In April 2018 too there were press reports of a similar shortage. Cancer patient