Use COVID Fund to purchase essential medicines, GMOA tells Govt.

The Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) will request the Governor of the Central Bank to exercise his power to utilise the ITUKAMA Covid-19 Fund to alleviate the acute crisis faced by the health sector.

“Only 36 million rupees of the aforesaid fund has been utilised for covid testing from the total of two billion rupees that was collected,” the GMOA said. 

“GMOA representing 95% of the Medical Officers in the country has identified the imminent disaster situation in the health system. Convening its General Committee members scattered through 130 branch unions it studied the dearth of essential drugs and surgical consumables. It was revealed that a significant amount of essential drugs are in shortage in several health care institutions including major hospitals in Colombo and few of those are enough for only a couple of weeks,” the Association said. 

“Pharmaceutical Production and Supplies Regulation, Prof Channa Jayasumana invited the GMOA for a discussion to formulate a contingency plan to defuse the imminent crisis. Health Authorities who participated in the discussion revealed that the Medical Supplies Division (MSD) was short of five life saving and 180 essential drugs,” GMOA said.