GMOA, Don’t Wound the Wounded

This article was prompted by the news item published in the DM of September 22 under the headline: GMOA Claims Strike a Success.   

The yard stick used by government doctors or the GMOA to gauge the success of Thursday’s 24-hour countrywide strike action or work stoppage appears to be the degree of misery, agony and inconvenience inflicted on helpless patients, who queue up at government hospitals from the break of dawn seeking treatment and relief for their ailments, having to return home, most of them in remote villages, disappointed, dejected and depressed, often getting back long after dusk with little or no money to afford another trip to hospital.   

How could anybody, leave alone the GMOA and its learned members,who have sworn the Hippocratic Oath could in their right minds measure the success of their regular and senseless trade union action by how much the people are made to suffer using SAITM as the whipping post. The moot question being asked is where were these now vociferous doctors hiding and why were they keeping their big mouths shut when the Rajapaksa regime helped give birth to the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) in 2008 and when in 2013 during former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term in office, the University Grants Commission bestowed on SAITM the right to award degrees. Not only did the Rajapaksa regime confer scholarships to students to follow the degree course at SAITM but also granted it a Rs.600 million loan from State banks. The thunderous silence then and the street protests, pickets and work stoppages  being carried out now underscore the fact that the GMOA is only attempting to fulfil its political agendas and ulterior motives.   

The news item also quotes Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) General Secretary Joseph Stalin as saying that the work stoppage by the teachers in the protest against SAITM and to highlight the danger posed to the country’s free education system was a success. Once again it is necessary to ask Mr. Stalin whether he too measures the success of the CTU action by the level of disruption caused to academic activities and holding helpless students to ransom by some unscrupulous teachers and principals falling “ill or sick”. 

Where were you Mr. Stalin when SAITM was launched nine years ago, nurtured and allowed to grow to what it is today?   

Mr. Stalin must be reminded that free education had lost its flavour with the mushrooming of private tuition classes in every nook and corner of Sri Lanka charging high fees from the thousands of students who attend classes. If free education needs to be protected, then why not protest against these private tuition classes which are spreading across this country on such a large scale?  

The other day two boys and two girls entered a bus on the 138 route and claiming to be students of the Jayawardenepura campus began haranguing SAITM and saying that free education was on the verge of being destroyed and that they were on a campaign to safeguard and protect it. Then they went round with tills collecting money saying it was needed for the court cases to be filed against SAITM. The GMOA should not mislead innocent students and drag them out into the streets to be tear-gassed, water-cannoned and baton-charged. If it is a responsible trade union,the GMOA should encourage them to return to their classes instead of wasting their time and the taxpayers’ money.  

In case there are shortcomings in the quality of medical education at SAITM, the GMOA should discuss these matters with the government and the other stakeholders  -- the Sri Lanka Medical Council, SAITM, its students and their parents -- with an attitude of understanding, humility and openness instead of an attitude of arrogance and condescension so that at the final count there are only winners.  

GMOA should not mislead students and drag them out into the streets to be tear-gassed, water-cannoned and baton-charged. If it is a responsible trade union,the GMOA should encourage these students to return to their classes instead of wasting their time and the taxpayers’ money

In the meanwhile, the government too should act proactively in resolving this contentious issue without vacillating or procrastinating. One positive step is the news that the Government had finalised the long-awaited minimum standards for medical education and would present it in Parliament after gazetting it within three weeks.  
Whatever the cause or reason for the agitation there is nothing so important as to justify the GMOA resorting to trade union action and wounding the wounded who 
seek healing.