Government pharmacists will stop work for one day from 8 a.m. on Monday, August 31, in a dispute over an allowance circular that was issued by the Health Secretary and then withdrawn.
The union’s president, Ajith P. Thilakaratne, said the circular had renamed the overtime allowance paid to pharmacists as an “additional service allowance”, Ada Derana reported. It was subsequently cancelled, he said, without any acceptable explanation and under pressure from the medical service.
The union is demanding the circular be reinstated, and says the strike is intended to force a decision after authorities failed to resolve the matter.
What stays open
Maternity and children’s hospitals, cancer hospitals and mental health institutions are exempt on humanitarian grounds and will not be affected.
At other hospitals, the union says it has prepared a mechanism to keep emergency and essential services running: heads of institutions can arrange continuity by contacting the chief pharmacist at their facility. Thilakaratne said the relevant parties have been notified so that public inconvenience is minimised. The Daily Mirror’s account did not carry the exemptions or the contingency arrangements.
Two details that do not settle
The two newsrooms name the union differently. Ada Derana calls it the Society of Government Pharmacists; the Daily Mirror calls it the Government Pharmacists’ Association. Both attribute the announcement to the same office-holder.
Both also date the disputed circular to August 29, 2026 — three days after the announcement and two days after the strike is due to begin. A circular cannot have been issued and cancelled before it exists, so the date as published is wrong in at least one respect. Neither report flags it. The figure appears to have come from the union’s own statement and been carried through unchecked; LankaNewz has not been able to establish the correct date.
Context
Pay and allowance disputes have run through the state health sector this year. Public Health Inspectors struck in August over a transfer at airport health services, and the government in the same month created a separate service category for specialist medical and dental officers — a structural change that adjusts the relative standing of professional grades within the health service.
