A boon for patients

According to our lead story yesterday the long awaited National Drug is to see the light of day this year, it’s objective being to streamline and monitor pharmacies and end the current ad-hoc drug pricing.

The story quoting a Health Ministry spokesman states that Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva was ‘determined to ensure a perfect Act with no loopholes for offenders to go scot free’.

Even though belated the news will be greeted with a huge sigh of relief by the long suffering public who are currently paying exorbitant prices for their drugs and is often fleeced by pharmacists.

Like all other enterprises today the health sector too has undergone a huge transformation with multinational drug companies calling the shots. The nexus between these multinational drug companies and the medical profession is today is only too well known for elaboration.

It is no secret that certain local doctors work hand in glove with these companies to manipulate drug prices in the local market in return for huge monitory benefits and research scholarships abroad not to mention other handouts.

Pharmacies too are drawn into the equation stockpiling their shelves with impressive brand names leaving the public with little option but to fork out treble the sums they would otherwise have paid for their generic equivalent. Today the price of medicinal drugs hardly comes into the Cost of Living equation but the long queues at Osu Sala outlets confirm the gravity of the problem.

Readers’ columns in newspapers are full of tales of pensioners voicing their plight of having to pay exorbitant prices for their drugs with their meagre pensions- a majority of them obviously caught up in a life and death situation.

It is in this light that the Minister’s move too speed up the implementation of the National Drug policy should receive our commendation. While this is being attended to steps should also be taken to tackle the problem of scarcity of essential drugs.

Today it is no secret that Government hospitals are without certain most essential drugs and patients are required to buy these from pharmacies and other outlets at very high cost. Sri Lanka is one of the few countries which boasts a free medical system.

If our Free medical system is to enjoy it’s true meaning measures should be taken to ensure that Government hospitals are provided with all essential drugs.

Whatever scheme implemented by the Government to ensure better health care for the public would be an exercise in vain if it does not have the required medical personnel deployed in all Government hospitals to administer treatment to the sick.

It is well known that Government doctors are lured by Private hospitals do conduct channel practises. While there can be no objection to these professionals augmenting their income in any way it would be incumbent on the State to ensure the ordinary patients get priority.

It should not be forgotten that these men of learning attained their status through the free education system funded by the public. While the Minister’s move to bringing pharmacies in line with Government policy should be commended there is more to be done to erase the appellation earned by the health sector as a sick giant.

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A victory for Iraq

Those who watched television footage of the victory celebrations of Iraqis on lifting the Asia cup in football would have experienced empathy with its people who are undergoing so much suffering and misery in the continuing bloodied phase of that country’s history.

Contrary to pictures of bloodied corpses, mangled limbs, wreckage of vehicles and tearful accounts what one witnessed was a refreshing change of spontaneous eruption of joy in an entire nation riven by sectarian violence and lain seige by alien forces.

The victory, more than ever underlined the theme of the unifying effect of sports to bring together a fractious nation as witnessed when the militias of the Sunnis, Shites, Kurds et al who hitherto trained their guns on each other fired volleys into the air in a spontaneous expression of joy at the heroics of the nation’s soccer team.

That sports is an effective cleanser of all enmity, hatred and bigotry among individuals or nations was starkly brought to the fore in this one momentous flash by the apparently simple task of driving a globular object into a net.

The victory celebration was seized upon by both the USA and Iraqi authorities to use it as a catalyst for the unifying of all the fractious elements and a call for an end to the senseless carnage.

For the long suffering Iraqi people though this may not be the end of their problems but according to some observers this could be used as a beginning of sorts to steer the nation on the road to normality and an end to the protracted conflict.

We see in our own country too how sport - in this instant cricket- has proved a strong medium for unity and concord among all races and ethnicities as demonstrated from the composition of the team.

One dearly hopes that the power of sport continues to play a prominent role to not only unite diverse segments but also heal existing wounds and carve a niche as the most potent calming influence in times of conflict and conflagration.