GMOF slams medicine purchase circular

It looked more like an effort to privatise the free healthcare service

By Dilanthi Jayammanne -July 19, 2025 CT

The Government Medical Officers’ Forum (GMOF), lashing out, said that the circular issued by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS), instructing health institutions to continue the local purchasing of medicines and surgical consumables, would only make pharmaceutical companies richer.

GMOF President, Dr. Rukshan Bellana, said on Friday (18) that it looked more like an effort to privatise the free healthcare service. The ‘Guidelines to heads of institutions, consultants, (Medical and Dental and Medical Officers, Dental surgeons, on the purchase of pharmaceuticals, surgical consumables and Laboratory tests,’ converts the entire State health system into a fee-levying one, he lashed out.

He said that this would only severely impact the poor and middle-class patients who come to the State health service for treatment. In the United States and the United Kingdom, they have medical aid programmes, and the government healthcare service is free for the poor. There are social welfare services for those patients who are economically challenged. But Sri Lanka’s free health system seemed to be going through a transitional period, he lamented.

Meanwhile, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), voicing its opinion, said that they too were in a quandary as to whether the circular was an effort of the Health Ministry to privatise the service. GMOA Secretary, Dr. Prabath Sugathadasa, observed that the medicines, the human resources and the service were all included in the free health service. It was the duty of the Health Ministry and health authorities to ensure the provision of medicines, surgical consumables and laboratory facilities to State hospitals. The Government must also ensure its provision.

These guidelines pose a question as to why an alternative to obtain the medicines, the surgical consumables and the laboratory facilities from the private sector was being put forward instead of meeting those responsibilities.

He said that there were instances when there were tears in the eyes of patients when asked to purchase a medicine from the private sector. “Although we write the prescription, the patient is unable to buy it from the pharmacy. Or when the prescription is given to buy the medicines for three days, the patient has the money to buy the medicines for only one day,” Dr. Sugathadasa lamented, noting that by purchasing antibiotics and prescribed medications in lesser quantities owing to money issues, the patient may either not be cured or may even develop other complications. He said that the patient would not even get the benefit of the free health service as a result.

The GMOA Secretary urged the Health Ministry and the Government to take immediate steps to provide the necessary medicines, surgical consumables and laboratory tests unavailable in the health system in government hospitals.