I would like to know from you that during the last budget debate it was talk about the money allocated by the government for current health. It was revealed that there is a big problem regarding the importation of about 27 essential medicines in Sri Lanka at present. We know there is a shortage of dollars in the country. We are in the throes of an economic crisis. What is the situation with these issues? Will we run out of essential medicines?
In order to move a country forward, it is imperative for a government to fulfill the two basic needs of the people of a country. One is to ensure the survival of the people. Food is the basic necessity of life. A government must ensure that at least three meals are served to every citizen.
The second is that diseases are caused by the same food system when living that way. Do you need to spend the rest of your life getting rid of those diseases? Drugs and other substances. Then there are the extra things that people need, even education. If he has these two, he will go on till the end of his life. So food as well as medicine is the most essential thing. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the government to provide all medicines from government hospitals. The rest have to keep supplying those drugs in the private market. That is not happening today. In our time, in fact, the first thing I did was set up a software. It took 7-8 months. We created an institution to administer the hospital system everywhere in Sri Lanka without spending a dime.
There has always been a shortage of drugs in Sri Lanka, right? It was not due to a shortage of drugs. Due to distribution imbalance. Suppose one hospital in one province runs out of this medicine, there is more in another. Because there is no accurate calculation until this is finally delivered to the patient.
Now that these methods have been developed there is a huge shortage of medicines in almost every hospital. I offered 27 drugs. Not 27, not 52, not 52 drugs. 27 of them are essential medicines. That means either life-saving, and other essential medicines. Snake venom is a life-saving drug. If the vaccine is not given immediately, the patient will die. Because snake venom has increased today.
There are about 5 anti-cancer drugs. There is a huge shortage of essential medicines for heart disease and neurological diseases. There has never been a shortage of medicines at the Jayewardenepura Hospital. But now they are revolting, demanding medicine. If this is the situation in a major hospital, there is nothing to talk about a regional hospital.
During your tenure as the Minister of Health during the last government, there were major disputes with the Government Medical Officers’ Association. What do you think of the conduct of that association today?
The problem here is not that they are politicized. We too have worked in trade unions for a long time. But we have never taken personal political ideologies into those organizations. Today, the entire Ministry of Health is inactive and controls all these transfers and promotions as they see fit. This is a mafia. When the data theft came, they tried to load it on us. In the end, the man who carried out the operation was arrested, but the arrest was made in the end. The engineer who did that will continue to delete this data until 3-7 in the morning. This is a very planned act. Find out what this guy is doing when he quit his job and joined a new company.
With the current political crisis, what is the future political climate and what do you propose as a solution?
People appointed Gotabhaya on the basis of national security. People made that decision because of events like the Passover attack. But now it has been confirmed that Gotabhaya is the most failed person in the Rajapaksa family. People now understand that a beautiful city cannot rule a country. People are fed up with family politics in our country.
And anyone can be the common candidate. Being president is the problem. Our government was displeased with the solution to the ethnic problem. And the failure to fulfill promises made to punish those who stole.