Sri Lanka doctors' union to take action over political reprisals against chairman

Sri Lanka doctors' union, the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) will have an urgent meeting of its central committee today to discuss the moves to be imitated over the alleged reprisals against the Chairman of the union.

The 7000-strong doctors' union says that the politicians are disrupting the work of the Chairman of the GMOA, specialist Anuruddha Padeniya.

The GMOA says that the personal file of Doctor Padeniya has also been taken away by the Bribery or Corruption Commission illegally without a complaint against him.

Sankalpa Marasinghe, the Vice Secretary of the GMOA says that the administrative problems of an official of the Ministry of Health must be probed by the Ministry and not by corruption investigation bodies.

The Union complained to the Secretary of Health Dr. Ravindra Ruberu that the Private Health Service regulatory council is collecting data of the union members who are engaged in private practice via the Provincial Directors of the Health Service and asked the authorities to refrain from taking any action against the members.

The GMOA warned the Secretary that it will take strong trade union action without prior notice if any of the members were penalized.

The GMOA is vehemently against the recognition of the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), known as the private medical college in Malabe as a medical degree granting university by the Higher Education Ministry, and has threatened to take union action if the Ministry fails to close it.