Compelled to take major TU action: GMOA

31 March 2017 10:01 pm

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) today said it was reluctantly compelled to go in for a major trade union action next week as the government had failed to offer a reasonable solution to the SAITM issue.

GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Haritha Aluthge told a news conference that they had waited nearly two months by giving necessary time to the related authorities to arrive to a decision on the issue.

“The GMOA’s Executive Committee will announce an exact day on Monday for the trade union action,” he said adding that they also wrote to President Maithripala Sirisena on the gravity of the issue.

He said the GMOA discussed the issue with the President at the special committee meeting which has been appointed by him to investigate the matter.

“We did not receive any reasonable solution to the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) in Malabe during any of these instances. We always wanted to resolve this issue by protecting the patients’ lives during this battle,” he said.

Meanwhile, GMOA Secretary Navin De Zoysa said that the GMOA was still waiting for the President’s intervention on the matter, stressing that they were willing to go for further discussions on the issue if the government would offer them an opportunity. (Kalathma Jayawardhane)