Alarm in Sri Lanka for the numerous cases of people who die or suffer serious consequences in the view after routine eye surgery. According to some doctors, the cause would be an anesthetic purchased by the Ministry in India from companies on the blacklist of unreliable products. But the Colombo government rejects the accusations.
Colombo () – Alarm in Sri Lanka over numerous cases of death of patients, including a woman pregnant with twins, which occurred in Sri Lankan hospitals and could be linked to an uncertified anesthetic that the Ministry of Health bought in the black market. There are also many people who have undergone routine surgeries – such as cataracts – in hospitals in Nuwara Eliya (in the country’s central province), Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa (in the north-central area) and have lost their sight because of it. drug. Now they are waiting for compensation from the authorities.
Many experts and operators of the health system consider this issue as one of the biggest failures of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA). Doctors who have used these products believe they were bought by the Ministry of Health on the black market from an Indian company. Among them are surgeons Gayantha Meddegoda, Nilupuli Waidyaratna and Dinesh Herath, who explained to that they had checked the labels of the drugs: “Most of those imported in recent months came from some companies that are on the blacklist of little products trustworthy and uncertified. We reported this to senior officials at the Ministry of Health and the NMRA, but instead of ensuring patient safety, they turned a blind eye to the issue.”
Sriyalatha Manampaeri (62) and Karunawathie Nissanka (49), from Teripehe and Hunnasgiriya in the central province, are some of the relatives of the victims of these low-quality medicines who have protested against “the negligence of the health authorities”. The same was true for the parents of Gunapala Rathnasiri (42), Miyuru Pathiraja (38) and Yasawathie Sedara (44) from Anuradhapura, who went blind overnight when they simply had to undergo cataract surgery at the hospital. As these are families in a situation of economic poverty, it is impossible for them to take care of their parents and go to work. “So now we will have to decide who will stay at home and sacrifice to care for our parents who have been disabled by the Ministry of Health,” they explain.
At a news conference in Colombo, Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella rejected the allegations, saying that “even when you buy 100,000 US FDA-approved drugs, some may turn out to be defective.” Similarly, when questioned in Parliament on the issue of the anesthetic drug imported from India and linked to deaths and visual impairment, he merely recalled that “initial investigations revealed that the controversial drug was only used on five patients, the Others have not yet been determined.
For his part, Mihiri Tillakaratne, a lawyer who is providing free legal assistance to the families of the victims, believes that “people who trivialize the sanctity of human life and dismiss accidental or negligent deaths in hospitals with contempt are not worthy to be responsible for the health of the Nation”.
