Allegations against Dr. Safi None of the complainants had come for tests at Castle/De Zoysa hospitals : DGHS

By Sandun A Jayasekera

Though the Kurunegala Magistrate’s Court has advised over 1,000 women who had lodged complaints against the controversial Gynaecologist Dr. Siyabdeen Safi for alleged unlawful sterilization to have tests at De Zoyza and Castle Street women hospitals, not a single complainant had come forward for the tests up to yesterday, Health Authorities said. 

Director General - Services (DGHS) Dr. Anil Jasinghe said the Health Ministry has arranged for aggrieved women to have tests at the two prominent women hospitals in Colombo by members of the College of Gynecologists on the instructions of the Magistrate of Kurunegala after nearly 1,500 women in Kurunegala, Dambulla and in many other parts of Kurunegala complained that they had developed complications and did not conceive after undergoing caesarean delivery under Dr. Safi’s observation.   

“The Health Ministry has appointed a panel of six member medical experts to inquire the complaints. The committee has not met in the last few weeks as several other investigations are in progress like the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital and the CID etc. We have also launched a counselling service for women who have allegedly been affected,” Dr. Jasinghe said. Dr. Jasinghe told the media that the committee of experts has to be further strengthened to cover all aspects of allegations against Dr. Safi and added it is not an easy task to test over 30,000 caesarean sections performed by about 25 Gynecologists at KTH in the last five years including Dr. Safi.   

Only after a panel of medical experts clinically tested all the caesarean surgeries performed at the KTH in the last five years, we could come to conclusion whether there was a deliberate medical intervention to prevent these mothers having babies, he stressed.