The Island Editorial

Jekyll vying with Hyde

01 October 2016

 

Humanity is dual in nature as one sees in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Jekyll maintains that man is not truly one but two and human soul is a battleground for an angel and a fiend, engaged in a fierce contest to assert dominance over each other. This kind of duality is present in governments as well.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration did a Dr. Jekyll immediately after capturing state power last year; it provided much-needed economic relief to the public and took some progressive steps to strengthen democracy. It slashed fuel prices drastically and increased the public sector salaries unprecedentedly. Thereafter, Mr. Hyde asserted supremacy and taxes were jacked up and not even the sick were spared when the unconscionable VAT increase was effected at the behest of the IMF.

Yesterday, we reported another instance where the government demonstrated its Jekyll-Hyde duality. Our news item said Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne had imported a stock of stents to be used to repair damaged hearts free of charge at state-run hospitals. This, the government has done while taxing the sick. Our report must have warmed the cockles of many a sick heart. It is in deed a meritorious act which should be appreciated by one and all.

Our report quoted Health Ministry spokesman Nipun Ekanayake as having said that Dr. Senaratne’s decision to make available stents free of charge had been consequent to a series of discussions the latter had had with cardiologists. Let the good doctors also be thanked for being so concerned about poor patients most of whom cannot afford costly heart operations and stents.

The Health Ministry’s announcement of free stents for heart patients has come at a time the Joint Opposition is screaming from the rooftops that the government is fleecing the sick. The Opposition MPs point out that heart patients are also burdened with higher taxes though treatment for kidney diseases has been exempted from VAT. The government needs to be told that hearts are as precious as kidneys.

The Health Minister is said to have been irked by huge profits being made from stents in the private sector at the expense of hapless patients. His consternation is understandable. Private companies and some unscrupulous doctors are thriving on the suffering of the sick. Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity as Bernard Shaw has said.

It is alleged that instances abound where unsuspecting patients are made to undergo operations unnecessarily so that private hospital owners and doctors working for them can laugh all the way to the bank. Most babies are born by Caesarean section as doctors make the most of the present-day mothers’ fear of labour pains.

Nuts, bolts, screws and other such things used in orthopaedic and reconstructive surgeries cost patients an arm and a leg. There is no state mechanism to control the prices thereof and doctors pocket huge commissions. Worse, after expensive operations patients have no way of knowing whether what they have got is the real McCoy. In this country, patients are without rights—they cannot even ask doctors questions—and the government ought to ensure that the sick are not exploited in this manner.

The quality of some drugs purchased by the government has been called into question. The Health Ministry and oncologists have locked horns over a new cancer drug imported from Russia. The latter say they cannot vouch for the efficacy of the drug concerned. It is hoped that the stents imported by the government conform to the international standards and they are good enough to be inserted into the hearts of ministers and other government grandees as well.