The Hon. Sajith Premadasa - Leader of Opposition
Sajith Premadasa raised concerns about widespread shortages of medicines, consumables, surgical sutures, imaging services and cardiac surgery capacity in public hospitals, citing Kalutara Hospital and major national hospitals, and tabled a document on shortages. He urged the Government to include strong financial penalties in tender agreements when suppliers provide incorrect dialysis needles, and questioned the Consumer Affairs Authority’s response to sharp retail price increases, calling for raids and public identification of profiteers. He described the matter as a national issue affecting the hospital system and requested urgent remedial action.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Thank you for the detailed answer, Hon. Minister.
¶ 02 I wish to draw attention to the severe drug shortages in hospitals. For your information, at Kalutara Hospital there are shortages of over 100 medicines and consumables; I will table the details. There are also shortages of sutures for surgeries. In major hospitals including the National Hospital, CT, MRI, angiogram and related imaging are being limited. Cardiac surgery waiting lists in several major hospitals extend to 2029.
¶ 03 On the dialysis needles: when suppliers deliver the wrong type (fixed instead of rotatable), please include strong financial penalty clauses in tender agreements to deter such breaches.
¶ 04 Also, if retail prices have jumped from Rs. 60–70 to Rs. 800 and beyond, what is the Consumer Affairs Authority doing? They should raid and name offenders to stop such profiteering. I table the Kalutara shortages document.
¶ 05 This is a national issue affecting the entire hospital system; I request urgent solutions.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 21 October 2025 ·No. 22635 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Sajith Premadasa - Leader of Opposition. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 21 October 2025. No. 22635. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/29568