Assistant Secretary of the UNP Dr. Jayalath Jayawardane said there was an urgent need for life saving drugs for patients who have undergone kidney transplants in several major hospitals. The Kandy General Hospital is the worst affected as it houses one of the main kidney transplant units, he said.

In a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he said yesterday (20) that at the Unit there were over 800 patients who required the drugs Cyclosporine, Celsept, Erythropoietin and Tacrolymus. For the past one month kidney transplant patients were not administered these drugs, he said. They are mainly immunosuppressive and reduce the activity of the patient’s immune system lowering the risk of organ rejection. Erythropoietin is involved in the wound healing process, Dr. Jayawardane said.

He urged President Rajapaksa to appoint a task force comprising consultant doctors to look into the shortage of essential drugs in hospitals in the country. "We are well aware that the Health Ministry is unable to solve its own problems. Instead it constantly has to depend on the President to settle its problems," he said. In which case there is no need for a Healthn Minister as the President just as well may take up the Health Ministerial portfolio as well," the UNP Assistant Secretary said.

"The want of essential drugs in the kidney transplant unit has been notified to the President even by the Chief Incumbent of the Asgiriya Chapter and the Anunayake of the Malwatte Chapter on June 29", Dr. Jayawardane said.

Jayawardane urged the President to intervene in the issue that concerns the lives of a large number of patients. "It is not an easy task to find a donor, to collect the funds for the operation and in the end the patients don’t have the required drugs to see them through – it would be the biggest lapse in the entire procedure," he said.