Study of public sector medicine supply chain in Sri Lanka, with particular emphasis in medicine stock outs

Abstract

Sri Lanka as middle income earning country, delivers health care facilities to the general public on free of charge, through government hospitals network. The main aim of the government is to provide superior public health care service to ensure healthy nation. The government medicine supply chain plays a major role in public health sector and currently public hospitals are suffering with major issues like frequent medicine stock outs, quality fail medicines etc. According to recent research findings the availability of medicine in public health care institution is around 50%, while it is over 90% percent in most of private institutions. The main objective of the research is to identify the main root causes and other supply chain related issues in the public sector medicine supply chain in Sri Lanka, which results above mentioned hospital level issues. The secondary data were collected through literature survey while primary data were collected through questioners and interviews. Both Hospital level and institutional level problems are focused separately and collecting data on those was also done separately. To rank issues based on its’ criticalness, descriptive analysis were used for both hospital and institutional levels. As the final output of the research, critical issues in both hospital level and institutional level were identified. Finally, in the latter part of the research possible solutions to overcome those issues were discussed base on interviewees’ ideas in public health sector. The overall research findings and suggestions will paves the way towards excellent public sector health care delivery in Sri Lanka.