The Island Editorial

Docs get overdose of good governance

17 September 2016

 

Scores of government doctors forcibly occupied the Education Ministry’s auditorium on Wednesday night, demanding schools for their children, only to be thrown out the following morning. The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has condemned the government action and reiterated its position that the children of its members who either return from overseas training or are transferred must be admitted to state-run schools. Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has claimed doctors’ demand is unreasonable and some of them have sought to play tricks on the Education Ministry.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has leapt to Akila’s defence. He is reported to have said via Facebook that his government does not consider any individual more privileged than another; nor does it consider a certain career path more important than another.

All professions, as Bernard Shaw has rightly said, are conspiracies against the laity. Doctors are no exception. So are other professionals.

One cannot but agree with the Premier on that score. However, one wonders why the semiliterate politicians who enter Parliament by unleashing violence, throwing around black money and making promises with no intention of fulfilling them, have been able to place themselves above all others paid with public funds.

It takes public servants decades to receive pensions whereas parliamentarians become eligible to retirement benefits just in five years besides living off the fat of the land at the expense of the public. The present government has scrapped the noncontributory pension scheme for those recruited to the public service while retaining that for lawmakers cum lawbreakers. Most MPs haven’t passed their GCE O/L and are not eligible to join the state service even as sanitary workers, but they draw higher salaries and enjoy better perks than most professionals in the state service such as doctors, engineers, accountants, legal officers, scientists and university dons.

The composition of the present Cabinet is antithetical to the concept of good governance in that some of its members were rejected by the people at the last general election but brought to Parliament through the backdoor aka the National List and made ministers. They are also living in clover at the expense of the public purse. How can the government justify considering these political rejects more important than others?

Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne has met the protesting doctors and undertaken to take up their grievance with the Education Minister with a view to finding a solution. This has given the lie to the government’s claim that the GMOA has made an unreasonable demand. If any doctor has sought admission of his or her child to Royal College on the grounds that he or she has been transferred to the LRH or the NHSL from a Colombo suburb as the Education Minister claims, his or her request must be rejected out of hand, but the genuine grievances of medical officers must be redressed. Education is a right and not a privilege and the state, as well as the government in power, is duty bound to ensure that children’s right to education is respected whether they are the progeny of professionals or the ordinary public.

The UNP-led UNF government had no qualms about groveling before the LTTE terrorists in a bid to work out a negotiated solution. Terrorist leaders were given VVIP treatment at the BIA. They were also allowed to infiltrate all parts of the country on the pretext of doing political work. But, the incumbent government, consisting of most of those who shamelessly appeased terrorists, is riding roughshod over doctors and treating professionals who are not ready to toe its line as terrorists.

The despicable manner in which the protesting doctors were treated on Wednesday night cannot be countenanced on any grounds. It was a supreme irony that the government, which is promoting an Indian-funded ambulance project, was so callous as to try to prevent a National Hospital ambulance from entering the Education Ministry premises to remove a protesting doctor who needed emergency treatment. The Education Minister should have directed one of his officials to meet the irate doctors and persuade them to leave the Isurupaya premises instead of disconnecting electricity and water supplies and, worse, deflating the tyres of doctors’ vehicles. The good doctors got an overdose of good governance!

Members of the GMOA are being harassed in this manner because they did not back the UNP-led coalition at the last two elections and are opposing the government’s efforts to please India by inking the blatantly lop-sided Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), which is inimical to the national interest. The government is all out to tame the GMOA, probably the most powerful trade union in the country, so as to frighten all other unions into submission and bulldoze its way through.

The GMOA may not be everybody’s cup of tea. It has antagonized less powerful trade unions and stands accused of preventing other health workers from winning their rights, as we have argued in this space previously. However, it has taken up the cudgels for the public vis-à-vis efforts by multinationals to exploit them and shaped state policies on tobacco, alcohol, food safety and agrochemicals. It has also shown willingness to soften its stand on other health sector trade unions.

All those who cherish democracy and workers’ rights must circle the wagons in defence of the GMOA while urging it to be more flexible and accommodating to other workers. Sinister attempts being made in some quarters to suppress trade unions must be countered with might and main.