Sri Lanka economic Crisis: Doctors warn hospitals nearly out of medicines, threatens death toll could cross pandemic
In Sri Lanka, the doctors have warned they are almost out of life-saving medicines as the country’s economic crisis threatened a worse death toll than the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) in a statement has said that all hospitals in the country no longer had access to imported medical tools and vital drugs.
According to media reports, officials and health workers said that drugs to treat heart attacks and tubes to help newborn babies breathe are in short supply nationwide. It also said that blackouts are forcing doctors in rural Sri Lanka to stitch wounds and treat snakebites in the dark. Several facilities have already suspended routine surgeries since last month because they were dangerously low on anesthetics.
Weeks of power blackouts and severe shortages of food, fuel, and pharmaceuticals have brought widespread misery to Sri Lanka, which is suffering its worst financial crisis in decades. Mounting public anger over the crisis has seen large protests calling for Rajapaksa’s resignation.
Thousands of people braved heavy rains to keep up a demonstration outside the leader’s seafront office in the capital of Colombo for the second day today.
