Eight years ago, Rosanne White was stricken with cancer and lost a kidney. After her cancer reappeared five years ago, an oncologist in Colombo, Sri Lanka's commercial hub, began her on Bevacizumab in May of last year, and she responded well to the medication.
White, a 58-year-old retiree from Sri Lanka, claimed she receives the shots for free as part of the country's universal government health system, which the great majority of the country's 22 million people rely on.
However, White claims she can no longer find the injection at government facilities after 13 rounds of therapy.
In the private market, bevacizumab costs 113,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($359) every shot, and White said the prices were eating into her meager funds because she did not have insurance.
"Before going in for treatment, we have to phone the hospital to see if our medication is accessible," White told Reuters. "However, what do you do if the nurses inform you that the hospital is out of the medication?"
White's inability to obtain Bevacizumab in state-run institutions is an early symptom of how Sri Lanka's healthcare system is on the verge of collapsing under the strains of the island nation's greatest economic crisis. In addition to medicine shortages, numerous operations and testing have been halted.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government has been unable to import basics such as medications and gasoline due to a lack of foreign cash, resulting in devastating power outages and driving hundreds of demonstrators to the streets demanding his removal.
Two government officials, six physicians, and a healthcare union leader talked to Reuters and stated they had never seen Sri Lanka's health system in such a deplorable state.
Because of a scarcity of surgical supplies, an internal document from a large state-run hospital in Colombo obtained by Reuters said that only emergency, casualty, and cancer procedures will be performed from April 7 forward.
Sri Lanka's health ministry did not answer to Reuters' comprehensive queries regarding the sector's difficulties.
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