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Cancer patients hit by delays in appointments
State-run hospitals are facing a crisis due to the delays in appointing chairpersons and directors to state institutions. Hospitals do not have adequate drugs to treat cancer patients and are not sure when the drugs will arrive. The reason: The delay in appointments to tender boards because of the vetting process by the committee appointed by the President. Without formal appointments to tender boards, they remain non-functional. As a result, the purchase of vital drugs for cancer patients has been affected.
The delays in completing tender processes have forced medical authorities to defer treatment of cancer patients throughout the country, officials said. The issue is compounded by Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne absence. He is attending the 144th Executive Committee meeting of World Health Organisation in Geneva. He is due back next Wednesday. Senior Health Ministry officials also are attending the meeting.
Both the Medical Supplies Division (MSD) of the Health Ministry and the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) responsible for supplying the required medicines confirmed that delays in appointing tender boards and the release of payments to suppliers had adversely affected the supplies. The move has forced the country’s main Cancer Hospital, ‘Apeksha’ in Maharagama to tell patients to come back later for treatment or advise them to by the medicine from private pharmacies. Hundreds of patients have already been turned away so far.
SPC Chairman Mohamed Rumy confirmed that supplies had been delayed due to tender procedure problems. “The 52-day political crisis delayed calling for tenders by more than a month and subsequently due to the delay in the appointment of directors to state institutions’ boards have held back the procedures,” he said.
The appointments of directors to state institutions were held up after the President ordered they would have to go through a vetting process by an official committee. Dr Rumy said he had spoken to Treasury officials about the delay of payments to suppliers so that the SPC could expedite the imports of drugs, but Treasury officials had pointed out that the commitment to pay up foreign loans amounting to US$ one billion had delayed payments.
“We are well aware that the delay in supplying drugs for cancer hospitals has serious consequences on the patients,” he said.
MSD Director General Lal Panapitiya told the Sunday Times that the impact of the recent 52-day political crisis was continuing to affect the supply process, for which the SPC was responsible.
Patients have been discharged by oncologists advising them to check and return for treatment when supplies are made available. The others have been told, if possible to buy the drugs costing more than Rs. 8,000 a week and call over at the hospital. Apeksha Hospital Director Dr Buddhika Kurukulasuriya told the Sunday Times that the shortage of certain drugs was affecting the functions of the hospital.
He said some of the patients needed the medicines to begin the treatment process that could curtail the spread of the cancer while there were others who had begun the treatment and needed to continue it uninterrupted. “We get supplies from donors, but those are not sufficient to treat all patients,” he said. One of the key drugs used for chemotherapy has been in short supply for more than two months. Meanwhile, the failure to properly constitute the board of director has also affected other state institutions.