Legislation for a National Medicinal Drugs Policy (MNDP) will be presented soon to make quality drugs available to people at affordable prices, Health Minister Maitripala Sirisena said.
Addressing a meeting on Friday the Minister said such vital legislation for the good health of the people had been delayed for a long time because there were some vested interests blocking it. Yet there was a lot of co-operation and support for the NMDP and he had ordered officials to finalise the legislation soon.
Mr. Sirisena pledged he would not leave the Health Ministry until this legislation was approved and effectively implemented so that the well being of the people would be given top priority in the health service.
The Minister said the first step would be the appointment of a National Medicinal Drug Regulatory Authority comprising eminent medical specialists, pharmacologists and a representative of the patients’ movement.
his regulatory authority would review all the drugs that have been registered and decide which drugs were essential in terms of Prof. Senaka Bibile’s essential medicines concept.According to a spokesman for the Peoples Movement for the Rights of Patients the number of drugs registered for import was more than 15,000 – with thousands of them being non-essential drugs under highly expensive brand names.
When the NMDP is implemented the number of drugs could be slashed to about 1,000. |
E-mail
