Sri Lanka’s health system is the latest casualty of a worsening economic collapse which has led to chronic shortages of food and fuel amid surging national debt and a sharp rise in the worldwide price of vital commodities.
Life-saving cancer drugs are running out and hospitals have been forced to cut back standard medical procedures, focusing on accident and emergency treatment.
Even basic medical equipment is in short supply and single-use medical items are being sterilised and reused, Reuters reports.
The government has less than $2 billion worth of foreign exchange reserves, equivalent to about one month of imports, but faces significantly higher debt repayments.
The lack of foreign exchange has left President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government unable to import essentials; fuel shortages are causing crippling power cuts and bringing thousands of protesters on to the streets demanding his ousting.
The economy, which relies heavily on tourism, has been devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic and hit by the sharp rise in oil prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has made importing enough fuel unaffordable.
Some analysts have criticised Mr Rajapaksa's government for its decision in 2019 to make deep tax cuts and delay talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Those negotiations are now going ahead.
A close aide to Mr Rajapaksa has said previously that the tax cuts had been designed to boost the economy but that Covid-19 then struck.
The Sri Lanka Medical Association, the country's oldest professional medical body, wrote to Mr Rajapaksa last week warning him that even emergency treatments may have to be stopped in the coming days.
"This will result in a catastrophic number of deaths," the association said.
Saman Rathnayake, the secretary of Sri Lanka's Pharmaceuticals Ministry, said the government’s currency devaluation and rising debt means there is no quick fix. "This will not end in two months. The dollar crisis will go on."
But he said new sources of supply could help to alleviate immediate shortages.
Some medicines ordered through a credit line with neighbouring India, which supplies 80 per cent of the island's requirement, would likely arrive within two weeks.
"If this Indian credit line works, there won't be an issue for the next six months," Mr Rathnayake said.
Beyond that, Sri Lanka has sought help from the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
"Their things will come after six months," he said. "That is how we've planned."
Desperate for supplies, some doctors' groups have made public appeals for donations.
Running out of endotracheal (ET) tubes used to help newborn infants with respiratory distress, the Perinatal Society of Sri Lanka issued a list of supplies that can be donated via the Health Ministry.
"We have almost used all the stocks and no ET tubes will be available in few weeks," the society's president Saman Kumara said in a letter shared on social media.
"I have instructed [staff] not to discard used ET tubes but to clean and sterilise them from now onwards as we may have to reuse them."
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Company Fact Box
Company name/date started: Abwaab Technologies / September 2019
Founders: Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder and CEO. Hussein Alsarabi, co-founder and CTO
Based: Amman, Jordan
Sector: Education Technology
Size (employees/revenue): Total team size: 65. Full-time employees: 25. Revenue undisclosed
Stage: early-stage startup
Investors: Adam Tech Ventures, Endure Capital, Equitrust, the World Bank-backed Innovative Startups SMEs Fund, a London investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, among others.
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
US tops drug cost charts
The study of 13 essential drugs showed costs in the United States were about 300 per cent higher than the global average, followed by Germany at 126 per cent and 122 per cent in the UAE.
Thailand, Kenya and Malaysia were rated as nations with the lowest costs, about 90 per cent cheaper.
In the case of insulin, diabetic patients in the US paid five and a half times the global average, while in the UAE the costs are about 50 per cent higher than the median price of branded and generic drugs.
Some of the costliest drugs worldwide include Lipitor for high cholesterol.
The study’s price index placed the US at an exorbitant 2,170 per cent higher for Lipitor than the average global price and the UAE at the eighth spot globally with costs 252 per cent higher.
High blood pressure medication Zestril was also more than 2,680 per cent higher in the US and the UAE price was 187 per cent higher than the global price.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The years Ramadan fell in May
