Sri Lanka's cancer patients struggle in economic crisis

Priyantha Kumarasinghe starts his day in the small Sri Lankan town of Maharagama with a breakfast of two biscuits and a small glass of tea, followed by a round of cancer medicines.

- UDITHA JAYASINGHE, KIM KYUNG-HOON

The 32-year-old vegetable farmer was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021 and started receiving treatment last year, just as Sri Lanka's economy went into freefall.

Amid crippling fuel scarcity and weeks of unrest, Kumarasinghe says he was unable to travel the 96 miles between his home and Sri Lanka's main cancer hospital on the outskirts of the country's largest city, Colombo, for treatment.

"If I had been able to get treatment properly during June, July and August, there is a good possibility I could have reduced the lung cancer," he says. "Because that was not possible, that may be the reason why the cancer has grown."

Kumarasinghe is among hundreds of cancer patients who have had their treatment upended by Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Its hospitals have struggled to contend with severe drug shortages, which have worsened over the past year, a representative of Sri Lanka's largest doctors' union says.

"All hospitals are experiencing shortages. There is difficulty in even sourcing basics like paracetamol, vitamin C and saline for outpatient services," says Vasan Ratnasingam, a spokesperson for the Government Medical Officers' Association.

Specialist facilities like cancer and eye hospitals are running on donations, Ratnasingam says. Sri Lanka's health ministry and senior health officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Battered by the loss of tourism and remittance earnings due to the pandemic, alongside an ill-timed tax cut, Sri Lanka slid into crisis in early 2022 after its foreign exchange reserves dried up, leaving it short of dollars to pay for fuel, food, cooking gas and medicines.