Cancer patients on long-term treatment are spending more than Rs. 100,000 a month on medicines unavailable in government hospitals, a doctors’ trade union leader has warned, according to the Daily Mirror.

Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa, Chairman of the Medical and Civil Rights Doctors’ Trade Union Alliance, said the unavailability of certain drugs in the state system forces patients to buy them from outside pharmacies, placing patients and their families under immense financial pressure and making them balance the cost of essential medicines against household expenses and their children’s needs.

The unregistered-drug concern

Dr. Sanjeewa raised a second problem that is not about price. He said some medicines bought from outside pharmacies are not registered in Sri Lanka, which adds to patients’ concerns over the reliability of their treatment as well as its availability.

That is a distinct claim from a shortage. A patient paying privately for a registered drug is being asked to carry a cost; a patient buying an unregistered one is also carrying a risk, with no regulatory assurance of what they are taking.

He called on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to ensure that the medicines cancer patients need are promptly procured and supplied through the Medical Supplies Division, saying urgent action was needed to stop vulnerable patients being pushed into further hardship during life-saving treatment.

What the figure adds to what is already on record

The Rs. 100,000 monthly figure is a patient-side measure of supply failures this newsroom has reported from the system side. In August the same union said a drug used to protect chemotherapy patients from infection — sold as Neupogen, Filgrastim and other brands — normally costs about Rs. 900 but was selling for more than Rs. 25,000 on the black market during a national shortage.

In September, 190,000 GCSF injections of the same drug class were reported held up between the regulator and Customs. Apeksha Hospital at Maharagama had already recorded a shortage of the drug in August.

Separately, patients at the national cancer hospital face delays in radiotherapy because a newly installed CT simulator cannot be used — a shortfall in equipment rather than drugs, but with the same consequence of pushing patients towards private providers.

Not reported

The filing names no drug, identifies no hospital, and gives no count of how many patients are affected or what “long-term treatment” means in months. It does not say how the Rs. 100,000 figure was arrived at, or whether it is a typical or a worst case.

No response from the Ministry of Health, the Medical Supplies Division or the National Medicines Regulatory Authority is reported, and no unregistered drug is named or identified by class. The union does not say whether it has raised the matter with the Ministry before appealing publicly to the President.

A single-source report

No other verified newsroom reachable from this desk had filed on these remarks at the time of writing. Hiru News and NewsFirst carried no corresponding report, and Ada Derana has been returning a CloudFront block to this desk for twenty-three consecutive days.

Source: Daily Mirror.