A Search for Balance: Pharmaceuticals in Sri Lanka: Pioneering Steps in a Receptive Environment and Subsequent Accommodations
Author(s)
Weerasuriya, Krisantha
Abstract
Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical policy represents a classical case of a far-sighted National Drug Policy, even if it is not set out in a single comprehensive government document. Instead it is based on a number of laws, reports and recommendations which have evolved over time and been adjusted and balanced by the political, scientific, and administrative process that has been going on since the 1950s and continues today. The author finds the basis of Sri Lanka’s pharmaceutical policy in its democratic traditions, which emerged long before the country became independent in 1948, and in its advanced social policies. These provided education and health services free or at low cost to the broad mass of the population earlier than in most countries in the South and even some countries in the North. The author points out, however, that a democratic and socially responsible policy does not come about by itself. It requires a person who has both a strong vision and the capacity to make this vision come true. Such a person was the physician and pharmacologist, the late Professor Senaka Bibile who was able to implement step by step Sri Lanka’s comprehensive pharmaceutical policy. The paper shows how the legacy of Professor Bibile has been preserved, developed and adjusted to prevailing political, social and economic circumstances during the past two decades.
