Rein in the drug mafia

Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena has ordered the Ministry’s Internal Audit Department to conduct a full scale investigation into a container of medical items lying at the harbour. It is revealed that the medical items imported by the State Pharmaceutical Corporation six months ago had been rejected by the National Drugs Authority as these items did not meet the quality standards of the Authority.

The SPC General Manager who initially confessed to be in the dark when contacted by our reporter, subsequently admitted that the Authority may have rejected such a consignment imported by them for not meeting standards. This itself gives an insight into the state of affairs at the SPC which is entrusted with the responsible task of ensuring quality drugs are imported.

Many Government Departments have been hit by scandals in recent times and the SPC is one of them. But unlike other State institutions, the SPC has been entrusted with the onerous duty ensuring people’s lives are not endangered through negligence. It cannot hold the lives of the people to ransom due to the greed of certain individuals.The Minister should therefore get right to the bottom of this matter. He should ascertain if there was a deliberate attempt to import outdated medicines and the true motive behind it.

Minister Sirisena upon assuming office in his new portfolio promised to clean up the Health Ministry of all its ills and also to sternly deal with all forms of corruption and malpractices in the health sector. In this context, he has kept to his promise by launching a probe into a most vital Department of the Health Ministry. Not only that, he has gone beyond an internal inquiry and called for a full scale Police investigation too into the matter.

It is hoped that the investigations will succeed in getting into the bottom of the matter and the guilty parties exposed and appropriately dealt with. Police also believe that the suppliers with the help of the local agents might have planned to distribute the outdated medicinal items to the local market. If this happened these outdated drugs would have invariably found their way into the pharmacies and sold to an unsuspecting public with dire consequences.

This detection of a single container of outdated medicines may well be only the tip of the iceberg. It is common knowledge that corruption has taken deep root in our health sector with a mafia in control. It is well known, medicinal stocks are imported in small quantities so that more commissions can be got as the process of importing more supplies continues. There are also massive irregularities in outstation hospitals where vital drugs are hidden due to lack of proper supervision. The Minister should ensure a proper mechanism is in place to ensure the poor patients in the villages are not cheated by the acts of these unscrupulous elements.

Rackets are not only confined to the import of medical supplies. These cover a wide range involving doctors and medical staff particularly with regard to prescriptions. Today, it is an open secret that there is a link between some medical practitioners and the drug companies with regard to prescriptions with fat commissions at stake resulting in the public health being put at stake. It is no secret that our doctors are offered foreign trips and other benefits by these drug companies for recommending their drugs.

The frequent arguments and counter arguments we see in the newspapers on the relative merits certain generic drugs bear are testimony to this. Drug companies still continue to send their salesmen to meet doctors during duty hours although this practice was banned by the former Health Minister.

While the act of Minister Sirisena to probe the circumstances surrounding the import of substandard drugs by the SPC should be commended, tackling problems in the health sector needs a holistic approach. The whole health sector administration needs a complete overhaul with moribund systems and practices done away with and replaced by fool proof system to minimize corruption. It would also help get rid of the vermin that is eating into the vitals of the health sectors endangering the lives of the people in the process.