People funding free education have right to say stop private practice

• For a start, this stupid vehicle permit scheme should be scrapped forthwith 
• It is the people who funded 13 years of their schooling and their graduate education. That includes five years of medical education

Selfish, unethical work resulted in disrupting medical education for over 10 months. None but GMOA and dons are responsible for chaos

Can they ever publicly say, they are honestly delivering on their social responsibilities to ask for more?

Having indulged in writing on issues like reconciliation, corruption, development and all things directly political, a news item on Sunday last prompted this write up on professionals and academics beyond the short mention, I had about them last week. 

 
On Sunday, March 18, the Sunday Times carried a news item based on a letter written by the Kelaniya University Faculty of Medicine Teachers’ Association (KUFMTA) to the Minister of Higher Education.

  
It says:  

“This trade union action (referring to the strike by non-academic staff) has completely disrupted the academic activities of the University system and more so in the faculties of medicine, since medical education was earlier disrupted for over 10 months over matters relating to the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) issue.”  

This is very funny, coming from Medical Faculty academics, which encouraged and allowed students to go out on street rampages on a weekly basis almost the whole of last year.  

Funny, disgusting and more than irritating too when they now say over 10 months of medical education was disrupted “over matters relating to SAITM issue.”  
What are those SAITM related issues?  

They are nothing more than what Deans of all Medical Faculties and their destructive allies the GMOA leaders created.  

It was these same Deans who left medical faculties to be run by student mobs as they pleased. All eight State University Medical Faculty Deans, who sit as Ex-officio members in the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) and that includes the Dean of the Kelaniya University Medical Faculty as well, together with GMOA, played a sinister role in dragging the SAITM issue into a crisis for no advantage of their own medical students and most unjustly against those medical students at SAITM. 
During Prof Carl Fonseka’s pitiful tenure as the SLMC President, these Deans, in fact, changed recommendations of their own SLMC Committee, that investigated the quality of SAITM medical education, headed by Prof Rizvy Sheriff, for no other reason but to deny SAITM students any possibility of graduating as medical practitioners.  

All those selfish, unethical work of theirs resulted in disrupting medical education for over 10 months. None but they are responsible for all that chaos.

Having aided and abetted the disruption of University education for almost one year, how or why have they suddenly turned into Saints in medical education?  
It is the same dirty, selfish mindset that deprives SAITM students any reasonable solution that is still working.  

They don’t want the university non-academic staff unions to gain an advantage and benefit from their strike action. Yet, these dons cannot oppose the strike openly for FUTA, is collecting and arranging demands to go for strike action in a few months from now.  

Hence, this letter to the Minister of Higher Education is just to cover their otherwise crude selfishness.  

I beg to ask these dons who want the present university non-academics’ strike settled soon to save medical education,  

“Would you oppose the planned FUTA trade union campaign that demands ‘retirement permit for duty-free vehicles’, to save medical education?”

FUTA leadership is now canvassing for consent from affiliated teacher unions for demands “FUTA should agitate for, and take trade union action on, as necessary”.  
The demands, over a dozen are extremely selfish and greedy, beginning with “salary concerns post-2020, obtaining retirement permit for duty free vehicles, leave conditions especially addressing overseas leave constraints, adequate university housing for dons and remedying anomalies and injustices in payment of allowances and provision of benefits such as communication allowance among few others that had been squeezed in to show the academics are also interested in University activities. 

None of them have anything directly related to serious educational reforms though. Most have been listed expecting such personalized demands would carry the whole academic population on board for trade union action. The final demand list may even end up including one for preferential quota system for FUTA in Grade I School Admissions.  

In fact, this was argued as necessary by the Secretary of FUTA himself, some months back.  

These academics are not alone in professional greed. The GMOA leadership too has come up with similar and equally selfish demands once again. A short message on mobile phone that went out to the membership end of first week this March read, “Hon. Minister Rajitha has given an appointment to GMOA on 23 March to finalise the decisions on our proposals for DAT revision & 05 yearly vehicle permit.”  

Obviously there are other demands as selfish as these, they would be taking up with the Minister, if the appointment is kept as scheduled. Unlimited, never satisfied greed for money, leaves no shame with these mafia-type GMOA leaders to talk of revising an allowance that in the first instance is not valid and should be scrapped.  
“Disturbance, Availability and Travelling” allowance they call DAT is Rs.35,000 per month. What is “disturbance” for a medical practitioner who anyway is “on call”? What is “availability” when they are “on call”? Do they mean DAT is for those who are disturbed and called to be available for duty when not “on call”? Does it then mean those who are not disturbed and asked to be available during a month, are not paid DAT for that month? That’s how vulgar this DAT is and the GMOA leadership wants it revised upwards for no apparent reason.

These medical practitioners never sign attendance for two reasons. One, they suffer from an incurable disease called “AMES” (Acquired Mega Ego Syndrome) and thus don’t want to sign attendance like other public employees.  

They think they are not “flunkies” to sign attendance registers like others. The second and the more important reason is, with no attendance register to calculate the actual hours worked, overtime pay is now calculated on the personal diary entries as endorsed by another GMOA member, who is the DMO.  

They are paid overtime on an hourly basis as well as for three weekends they work. And there is much duplicity when DAT is also paid.  

When “disturbed and called to be available” and when that time goes as over time too. Fact is, there is no acceptable monitoring and supervising mechanism in place in any Government hospital or in the health sector that can check abuse that’s plenty.  

With both the FUTA and the GMOA wanting duty free vehicles every five years, where do people who fund their living stand? There are 18,300 plus registered medical practitioners in Public Service. IF on a very conservative estimation, 75 percent of them purchase duty free vehicles, with a nominal duty waiver of Rs.03 million per vehicle, the national income to the Treasury, the people, will have to forego will be a colossal sum of 41,400 million rupees (Rs. 41 bn). 

What if that amount or close to that amount of national income has to be forgone for FUTA membership, who would want the same facility? Loss to public would definitely be more than 125,000 million rupees, on a realistic estimate.  

The GMOA and the FUTA leadership that claim they stand for free education should know, it is the people of this country -from every pauper on the street to the wealthiest high flying proprietor- have funded 13 years of their schooling and their graduate education. That includes five years of medical education. 

That notwithstanding, every cent of these professionals’ and dons’ take home salary and all other perks are also funded by public money. 

What moral obligations do these medical professionals and the academics have to society, to demand more and more? 

Can they ever publicly say, they are honestly delivering on their social responsibilities to ask for more? 

It was one of these university dons who once told me, if the railway employees want to strike for better pay, they must also ensure a better-improved service.

There are plenty of issues in the public sector regarding salaries and cadres. They have to be fixed once and for all to demand an efficient Public Service.  

There are long-running anomalies on unnecessary salary gaps maintained between different trades, skills and professions on “fake ratios”. 

 
The GMOA sabotages all other union demands on salaries and allowances to maintain these gaps as wide as possible while holding public life to ransom to increase their package. 

This is a symptom of “free education producing bigger crooks” in a competitive free market economy.  

This method of salary and cadre calculations will have to be done with and sooner the better.  

Sri Lanka needs to have a common “national living wage” across all sectors, services, skills, trades and professions.  

Everyone has a right to a decent and a secured life and that has to be guaranteed to make “free education” worth its cost.  

Primary condition to ensure that is to pay a living wage for the job one is employed for. It is this ‘living wage’ that should be topped with a “skill or professional” allowance to maintain a decent appreciation of responsibilities and workload entrusted in employment.

For a start, this stupid vehicle permit scheme should be scrapped forthwith.  

That not only leads to corruption but also drains off hard-earned foreign exchange on increasing fuel imports too.   Next, the GMOA should be very plainly told, if any of its demands require more public money than what is now allocated, their channelling and private practices (PP) would be completely banned.   People cannot be candles those are lit at the both ends-funding their education and salaries and paying for medical treatment.  

They are free to resign and practise privately.