Minister committed to implement National Drug Policy

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

The draft National Medicinal Drug Policy Bill is with the Legal Draftsman’s Department, Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena said yesterday.

He said he will take steps to move the Bill into the legislative process once it is made available to his ministry by the Legal Draftsman’s Department.

Sirisena said he is committed to implement the National Drug Policy as it is one of the foremost responsibilities which President Mahinda Rajapaksa entrusted him to carry out soon after he assumed duties as the health minister in 2010.

The National Medicinal Drug Policy Bill when it becomes law would establish the institutional framework for controlling drug commerce in Sri Lanka with the setting up of an independent Drug Regulatory Authority. The envisioned regulatory body is empowered to deal with tender procedures relating to medicinal drugs, quality assurance, registration and supplies of drugs. It will take to task those violating the Act, he said.

Minister Sirisena said the Health Ministry completed its work on the National Drug Policy.

It has drafted the Act, provided guidelines for its implementation and submitted it to the Legal Draftsman, he said. The minister said: “I can only pray that the present draft Bill does not face a similar fate as did by its former Bill in the hands of the Legal Draftsman’s Department.”

He said: “ I can say that I will bring the Bill to the Cabinet for approval, I can move it to Parliament from there, but I cannot commit myself to say when I can do that.” He said his experience with the Legal Draftsman’s Department in reaching the last steps of the previously drafted National Drug Policy Document does not give him that pleasure. The minister said the Health Ministry drafted the Bill in 2010 based on the National Drug Policy of Prof Senaka Bibile.

“Sri Lanka accepted Prof Bibile’s National Drug Policy Policy as the country’s National Drug Policy. It is a Drug Policy accepted by the world,” he said.

“I held the draft policy at the BMICH in October 2011 and told the public that the long awaited National Drug Policy has now come and I will bring it to Parliament within two months,” said Sirisena.

“The Legal Draftsman;’s Department promised that it would provide the final draft to us in October. However it did not happen,” he said. “Then in mid – December, I invited Legal Draftsman’s Department officials to have a discussion at the Health Ministry about the draft document , a high ranking female officer of the Legal Draftsman’s Department told us then that they have finished all work pertaining to the Policy and that they will hand over the final draft to us in two weeks. We were supposed to get it in January this year. However they did not give it to us,” the minister said.

“Then at a progress review meeting of the Ceylon Pharmaceutical Corporation, held at Temple Trees this year with the participation of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga , I requested Secretary Weeratunga to ask about this from the officials of the Legal Draftsman’s Department. We have invited them for the meeting,” he said. “President Mahinda Rajapaksa asked them when they could hand over the final National Drug Policy Bill, the same female officer came up with an usual answer saying that they will give the draft Bill in two weeks,”he said.

“Spells of many two weeks have passed since then . I thought I could introduce the Bill in Parliament in April before the advent of Sinhala and Hindu New Year following the meeting with the President. Nothing did happen until we have come to learn that the female officer has retired from the Legal Draftsman’s Department, and the new officer of the Department informed us that the former female officer has not left a draft National Drug Policy Bill as such with them.

“I then contacted her over the phone and asked if she could send the document to us. She said it was in her computer. We did not know what happened after that until the present Legal Draftsman’s Department proposed us to redraft the document again,” the minister said.