By M. M. Janapriya –

Dr M. M. Janapriya

Introduction

I see the GMOA crying foul for stripping the privilege of owning a car imported on reduced duty. This right not a privilege was granted to the GMOA members in principle by President JR Jayewardene in 1986 during the STF-Ranasinghe saga. This facility won without shedding a single drop of blood, sweat or a tear is now being fought for, with all their might. It is a shame that this right was ‘nationalized to include every mother’s son’ and the GMOA of the time being headed by doctors with vested interests, did not mind it, it seems.

A short Trip Down Memory Lane

I returned from the UK after further training and obtaining the necessary qualifications, on the 7^th June 1981, a day before my 3 years of study leave expired. I often criticised my colleagues and others for playing the system. Not infrequently I fought against them who like the drug dealers and the some governments had blessings of the regime in general and Fernando led health department in particular, so I wasn’t the best buddy of the `unhealthy department’. Hence I always tried to be a step ahead of them.

As the junior most surgeon in the fray, I was being pushed from place to place to cover senior blokes, rightly so, to deputize for someone in dire need of respite. However the blatantly wrong transfer the big Fernando (the DHS) effected with the blessings of the President of the GMOA (now diseased) made me challenge the latter at the very next election. He withdrew and I got elected uncontested and for 3 more years no one felt the need to contest me.

Why did doctors deserve duty free cars?

I have written to the press, not so long ago,  how I fought injustice all my life. Winning the right to import a car duty free was the sweet result of one such fight for which no TU action was ever taken. The following rationalisation would make you understand our justification for such a stance.

1.Doctors were the only category of public servants who used their private cars for official work, like getting to hospital to attend to a sick patient out of hours

2. Many public officers of the same level often had official cars, with a free quota of fuel and the used these vehicles for private purposes too.

* Secretaries of Ministries, Department Heads, Chairpersons of corporations etc used these vehicles to send their, wives shopping, children to school and back etc.

* They were given a full months fuel quota for free as well

* When they retired the official cars they used could be bought at a very depreciated value too

3. If we stopped using our private cars for getting to hospital after hours the government would have to provide us with a fleet of cars, road worthy and fully insured. This would have proven very costly

4. Ambulances, and the Delica/Toyota vans they had at that time for the shuttle service from Barnes Place Quarters to General Hospital, Colombo were not insured. GMOA would refuse to travel in such vehicles.

5. The most practical and cost effective option for the government was to give doctors a significant duty concession on their car imports.

Even with all these stubborn facts to back us I realised that this was something we should not use trade union muscle to fight for. When I put my thoughts in to words at a General Committee Meeting of the GMOA, though not expressed overtly, I felt a degree of cynicism in the air, like “like hell we will get it”. This Idea was mine and mine only. No executive committee member helped me on the issue. There is a senior surgeon, many years senior to me called Dr. Wijaya Godakumbura (of safe bottle lamp fame) a general committee member who agreed with me and helped me all the way. He is in good health I believe, probably aged close to 90, who will bear witness to all this.

We sat together and drafted a letter embodying all the above facts and sent copies to all members of the cabinet either under registered cover or personally delivered by a known person. President JRJ was being shielded by the rascal of a Secretary called Menkdiwela who answered all mail addressed to the President with the stereotypical reply, “Your letter was received with thanks. H.E the President’s decision on the matter would be notified in due course”, but no one ever received a follow up letter. So at all costs Menkdiwela had to be bypassed, and so we did. I was the Consultant Surgeon, BH Kegalle at the time. Dr. Don Peter Kannangara LMS, a thorough gentleman a popular GP was quite friendly with us. His wife was Mrs. Wimala Kannangara, the sitting MP for Galigamuwa at the time. I got the letter addressed to the President sent through Mrs. Kannangara to be handed over in person.

In this way everybody who mattered in the Parliament were briefed and primed for action at the next time some rascal decided to wind the GMOA up.  So they did in the form of an STF chap assaulting  a junior doctor in G.H Kandy while on duty. Obstruction to duty of a public officer had already been made a non bailable offence, thanks to GMOA again. (For those who are not up to date, the former became law following a joint AMS and GMOA trade union battle requesting the scalps of some police thugs who chose to mercilessly assault the DMO Udugama for ordering the OIC out during non-visiting hours some time in 1972.)  Minister of National security Lalith Athulathmudali, failed and the President had to personally intervene. After his litmus test at the Presidential secretariat he invited us to his residence by the Ward Place Colombo 7.

We were hosted to a several rounds of good whisky and some tasty upmarket short eats. Some members of my delegation who were better known than me with their love for alcohol shyly turned down the offer like how 2^nd standard school children would behave in front of a teacher with a cane in hand. I felt quite at home with the old gent and poured myself a good double shot. Like some Americans my favourite shandy is coke so my glass was mahogany brown and frothing while I remain very calm and contended.

We had a heart to heart chat about how to settle the STF-Doctor saga, while being sensitive to the fact that all cylinders including the STF were firing in Jaffna at the time. The old gentlemen’ political wizardry was amply manifest by the way he handled the matter to our satisfaction. President also settled a few other outstanding matters for us and said “gentlemen, thank you very much. I am  happy we managed to sort it all out.” He turned to me and asked “anything else doctor?” Smilingly I said “thank you for asking your excellency, I hope you read my letter about duty free cars delivered by MP for Galigamuwa to you in person”. He replied “I thought you have already got it”. No sir I said. “Take it as granted. Work out the logistics with Ranjith would you?”(Ranjith Atapattu, the Minister of Health, it was). What about the 15 gallons of free petrol Sir, I asked. Without batting an eyelid, he said, granted.

So when I walked out of JRJ’s residence that night with my entourage, I had a spring in my step.

By this time I had got appointed as one of the two consultant surgeons at B.H Matara and when I broke the news to my colleagues over there they were over the moon.

How was the facility doled out to every Tom Dick and Harry? And why didn’t the free Petrol Quota come through?

I relinquished duties as the President of GMOA in 1987 after a 4 year uninterrupted run. JVP  together with other left parties CPSL and the NSSP were proscribed scapegoating them for the 1983 pogrom of Tamils. However it was alleged that the whole drama was a state orchestrated anti Tamil campaign headed by a Minister called Cyril Matthew. Unfortunately, even this revelation did not make the powers that be revoke the proscription of the JVP that was active underground to counter the government atrocities. Government was simply annihilating the JVP from where they were invisible to the public. The JVP counter activities against government atrocities were getting ratcheted up from 1987 onwards and it was unsafe for a non-aligned trade unionist like me to hang on to the job of President.

During my tenure as the President of the GMOA there were many instances the government and pro-government press tried to paint me with a JVP brush calling some of our activities as being influenced by the JVP. Government knew very well I did not have any JVP connections. The only contact I had with a JVP member was with late Dr. Subhash Chandra Fernando (SCF), Wijeweera’s brother in law who was freed from high security Jaffna prison and assigned to the General Hospital Colombo to do the second half of his internship. In the quarters located atop the former finance branch of the hospital called 327 quarters, only my room had a vacancy and SCF became my roommate. He was a thorough bred JVP-er and as they claim to be, a thorough gentleman who never tried to preach his political ideology to me. We became friends though.

In this political atmosphere, I turned down many requests to continue as the head of the GMOA. My immediate successor was a gentleman called Dr. Nadesan, a specialist JMO who was succeeded by my surgical colleague Dr. NAJ Niles, another gentleman par excellence. They were both Tamils and were safe from being branded JVP supporters by the government. These two gentlemen saw the GMOA sail through the stormy period.

This tremulous period was not ideal for my successors to discuss the nitty gritty of duty free cars with the Minister of health. I am not sure exactly when but GMOA became the toy of the well-known specialist forensic pathologist popularly known at that time as Jim Pappa (from Asterix Sinhala) not for his bravery but for his appearance. He worked in my ex co too in some capacity if I remember right but his presence wasn’t much to write home about. During his long trade union career he may have done some good for the union but winning the right of duty free cars definitely was not one of them.

Once the dust had settled it was left for him and the ex-co to work out the logistics of the duty free cars business. Even though he did not know a lot as to how it came about the secretary who continued from my time  should have known all about it. President J.R.Jayawardena offered the right only to us doctors headed by me for reasons mentioned already. The secretary of the GMOA was a member of a leftist political party and he clearly had political ambitions which was proven later by the fact that he indeed contested a seat at a general election. Such people do not want member problems solved. They want problems to go on and on, the only way they can have the membership revolve around them.  Jim pappa was not a clean man either.

This combination was a recipe for disaster for us. When they sat down to circularise the right we won only for ourselves, all the cunning Humphrey Applebys around like vultures seemed to have preyed on our kill. Disgusting stuff. Shame on the GMOA leadership!

Can the Present Doctors Redeem the Right?

President Jayawardene was a cunning man nicknamed old fox but he was a mature politician and an educated man. He granted us the right not because he was worried about the union action being continued but because we were a very hard working lot indeed. The Arithmetic Dr. Godaumbura and I worked out was compelling too. As surgeon, Kegalle, my first job, I had the help of only two interns. There were no SHOs, or Registrars. Being on call every day I managed to get every other Sunday off! At Matara, the story was a bit better being one of two surgeons. Still there were no SHOs or Registrars. The unit had to contend with only the two interns. Every Wednesday I drove to Colombo after the morning session to attend the ex co meeting starting at 5 pm. I used to hit the road back to Matara late at night to be available to work the following day. I had two spare wheels in my little Daihatsu Charade!

I am sorry the present doctors have lost the right we won for them. The question is can they convince the present regime the way I did, that they deserve the restoration of the right? It looks a big mountain to climb. I wish them good luck.