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Sri Lanka Navy Journal 52

Figure 1: Sri Lanka Navy Annual Health Service Budget from
2010 to 2017
Source: Sri Lanka Navy Budget Department, 2015

As a consequence, these high fluctuations and increase of health budget
highlight the requirement of effective and efficient management of medical
inventory in SLN with necessity of close supervision of important drugs,
priority settings on purchase and prevention of pilferage and expiry of drugs.
The aim of inventory management is to hold inventories at the lowest
possible cost, given the objectives to ensure uninterrupted supplies for ongoing
operations. West (2009) defines inventory management as continuing process
of planning, organising and controlling inventory that aims at minimising the
investment in inventory while balancing supply and demand. When it is applicable
to hospital sector, the goal of the hospital inventory system is to ensure that, there
is adequate stock of the required items so that an uninterrupted supply of all
essential items is maintained (Doshi et al., 2007). This process usually involves
controlling the transfer of items in order to prevent inventory from excess or
stockout level that could place the operation of the organisation into risk.
The Central Medical Stores of the Sri Lanka Navy

The quality of care in hospitals is sensitive to the timely availability of drugs and
medical equipment. In that scene, Central Medical Stores (CMS) of SLN performs
a vital role by purchasing, storing and distributing drugs medical accessories
and equipment where it requires by keeping naval persons physically and
mentally fit for duties. Besides, CMS of SLN is one of the most extensively used
and one of the few areas where large amount of money is spent on purchases