Crisis-hit Sri Lanka nearly out of medicine, doctors warn

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's doctors warned on Sunday they were nearly out of life-saving medicines and said the island nation's economic crisis threatened a worse death toll than the coronavirus pandemic.

Weeks of power blackouts and severe shortages of food, fuel and pharmaceuticals have brought widespread misery to Sri Lanka, which is suffering its worst downturn since independence in 1948.

The Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) said that all hospitals in the country no longer had access to imported medical tools and vital drugs.

Several facilities have already suspended routine surgeries since last month because they were dangerously low on anesthetics, but the SLMA said that even emergency procedures may not be possible very soon.

"We are made to make very difficult choices. We have to decide who gets treatment and who will not," the group said Sunday, after releasing a letter they had sent President Gotabaya Rajapaksa days earlier to warn him of the situation.

"If supplies are not restored within days, the casualties will be far worse than from the pandemic."

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 Colombo for a second day.

Business leaders joined calls for the president to step down on Saturday and said the island's chronic fuel shortages had seen their operations haemorrhage cash.

Rajapaksa's government is seeking an IMF bailout to help extricate Sri Lanka from the crisis, which has seen skyrocketing food prices and the local currency collapse in value by a third in the past month.

Finance ministry officials have said sovereign bond-holders and other creditors may have to take a haircut as Colombo seeks to restructure its debt.

New finance minister Ali Sabry told parliament on Friday that he expects $3 billion from the IMF to support the island's balance of payments in the next three years.

A critical lack of foreign currency has left Sri Lanka struggling to service its ballooning $51 billion foreign debt, with the pandemic torpedoing vital revenue from tourism and remittances.

Economists say Sri Lanka's crisis has been exacerbated by government mismanagement, years of accumulated borrowing and ill-advised tax cuts. — Agence France-Presse