The government will issue the gazette notification to reduce prices of stents for heart patients by Rs.200,000 and their medicine by Rs.50,000 next week, Health Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Minister Rajitha Senaratne said in Parliament yesterday.
The Minister said that as pledged by the good governance government at the election, the high quality stents selected by the consultants are provided free to patients who undergo surgeries at government hospitals.
He said Rs. 640 million was spent in 2016 to provide free stents and the measure is taken to provide relief to patients at private hospitals as well.
Minister Senaratne said the prices of stents will come down from Rs. 350,000 to Rs. 150,000 with the new move, while the medicine prices will go down from Rs.75,000 to Rs. 24,000.
Minister Senaratne made the observations in response to a question raised by MP Buddhika Pathirana for oral answers.
The Minister said the government spent Rs. 552 million on a new medicine that is given to a heart patient within two hours of a heart attack that would bring the patient back to literally fully normal. He said it has been made available in all the hospital.
He said another medicine was introduced that would bring the patients back to normal without them being paralyzed.
The Minister said the government would seek possibility of introducing a national health insurance scheme for the citizens.