The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) today launched a token strike across several hospitals in the country in an attempt to pressure the government into granting school admission for their children.
Padeniya – GMOA boss
The token strike launched by the GMOA has affected the hospitals in Kurunegala, Kandy and Matara. The move comes after the GMOA claimed that Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam had refused to meet them to discuss the anomaly issue over school admission for their children.
Yesterday evening over 200 members from the GMOA had gone to the education ministry and had waited for several hours to meet the minister, who had not showed up for the meeting.
GMOA says that doctors must show permanent residency for at least five years if their children are to receive admission to national schools. However, the GMOA said that this was not possible in some cases as doctors are transferred or some go for overseas training. But in a statement, the education ministry said that the doctors were demanding admission of their children to the best schools in the country and were trying to mislead the public by twisting facts.
According to the statement, the GMOA has demanded the education ministry to provide admission of their children to 12 popular schools in the country including Royal College, Ananda College, Visaka Vidyalaya, Dharmaraja College, Kingswood College, Mahamaya Vidyalaya, Kandy High School and Maliyadewa College.
Meanwhile, posting pictures on their Facebook page today, the GMOA alleged that while they had parked their vehicles at the education ministry to meet the minister yesterday, the tyres of several cars belonging to the doctors had been deflated. “If this was the way minister treat professionals of the country just imagine how he will treat layman of this country. This is how Education Minister treats doctors. Air has been removed from doctors’ vehicles which were parked in “Isurupaya” Yesterday,” they said in a post with pictures of several cars showing flat tyres,” they said.
The GMOA has said that unless a reasonable solution is offered for the schooling issue, they will be compelled to take drastic action. the GMOA and the government are at loggerheads over ETCA with the GMOA demanding that the proposed agreement be scrapped.
A. Silva / September 16, 2016
It is not correct to blame Doctors. We also faced the same problem getting our children admitted to schools. We remember how we felt those years. I remember politician recently got a quota to admit children. Other thing is teachers in the school can admit their children to their schools. Are not the teachers in the Royal do not enjoy this privilege. Is it not a privilege. Why cant the Minister meet these Doctors and even refuse their demand after meeting them. I believe we try to get more educated hoping that we are one day entitle to some privileges other ordinary people do not enjoy. Why cant the Doctors cannot be looked in that angle. However what the Doctors should do is to file a FR case for degrading and humiliating treatment they received at the Ministry at the hands of the Minister & his officials. Can one deprive the electricity and air conditioning. Can their tyres been depleted in the presence of the security. Doctors should go to supreme court against the Minister, secretary and security chief and maintenance engineers. Ministers & Officials do not pay these electricity bills. I know most of the Doctors pay taxes (PAYE) to Govt. I don’t believe Minister pay taxes to Govt. Minister should give an answer why he failed to meet them yesterday being the Public day.
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Menaka / September 16, 2016
This GMOA boss spends most of his time earning at Navaloka hospital, even during duty time, while taking a govt salary from the tax payers. And he is playing a role given by Rajapaksha’s for that he will be receiving in millions.
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jimsofty / September 16, 2016
This GMOA boss spends most of his time earning at Navaloka hospital, even during duty time, while taking a govt salary from the tax payers.
Earning money is not corruption..
But, the way politicians earn is corruption.
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Kakka / September 16, 2016
Earning money is not corruption. Taking a salary from tax payers and using that time to earn money is, corruption. Politicians are another story. That is day light robbery!
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Lalith / September 16, 2016
What about the children of services personnel who fought a war for 30 years, some of them without being at home for years? Don’t their children also deserve it?
What about the school teachers who toil day and night to teach us and also in the process produce doctors (including some ungrateful men and women)?
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Rajith / September 16, 2016
Dear GMOA members,
As responsible professionals of the country, do strikes against the government to establish a proper method for school admission rather than being bloody selfish.
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shankar / September 16, 2016
“Says Minister Deflated Their Tyres”
he also deflated their hopes and aspirations.
what the minister is telling ,choose between tyres or schools.If you want your tyres in the future forget about schools and if you want schools forget tyres.
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A. Silva / September 16, 2016
I could not mention about the Officials from Education Department and Issurupaya who are privileged to get their children admitted to popular schools not only their children I remember how my subordinate officer sold his wagon to pay a bribe to Edu-official to get his daughter admitted to Sirimavo. He sold the wan and poor fellow travelled in a motorbike for some time. Of course he got his daughter admitted to Sirimavo. Aren’t the Doctors should not enjoy privileges over the other profession. I say yes. Because I know how they toil for five years or more in the Medical college to become a Doctor. No leave as the other Govt servants enjoy. Doctors job is a difficult job and if the Society do not give the privileges the Doctors deserve and there will be hardly any one try to get admitted to Medical colleges. We will have to import Doctors to the country If we continue treat them in this manner. Why did the Minister stopped adopting 2005 circular based on a cabinet decision. Can the Minister deny any privilege already enjoyed by the Doctors based on a cabinet decision for last eleven years. Doctors can go to SC also on this issue. They should continue to fight as Rajith suggested above and teach a lesson to these swollen headed Minister and PM. I also must mention that I am a legal professional and not from the Medical profession.
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shankar / September 16, 2016
“We will have to import Doctors to the country”
whats the problem with that?we are importing everything else.Does the patient care about whether the doctor is srilankan,indian or bangladeshi as long as they are under the care of a good doctor.
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A. Silva / September 16, 2016
SHankar
You have avoided the main Issue Do the Doctors should continue to enjoy the privileges granted to them under 2005 circular?
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shankar / September 16, 2016
A.silva
2005 circular is a long time ago and a cabinet decision done at that time is not the ten commandments on tablets of stone on mount sinai.government change,cabinets change,everything changes including my apple of my eye that droops more often than 20 years ago.infact i think it was oscar wilde who said that everything changes except change itself.Doctors also must learn to adopt to change.You say you are a legal professional and same way i’am a finance and now investment professional who branched into general management after passing the CIMA and CIM.You say you feel sorry for the doctors who studied hard for 5 years.What did you think we did.working and saving for exorbitant fees for ICMA as it was called then,i get nightmares when i think of that seven years or so.We had to compete from here with british,singaporean and malaysian students who had all the fcilities we did not have here.Did we want special priviledges.No.We went with the demand and supply for the qualification.When the demand was good we did well.When it wasn’t we did not do that well.
doctors here seem to be swollen headed characters.one chap i knew who was a professional wanted a room in a place whre the other rooms were occupied by doctors.The owner was willing to give but some of the female doctors raised a fuss and he then called the chap and declined.They wanted the house exclusively for doctors only even if the owner had forego the rent for a room.They were not willing to compensate him for it.So you see the more we pander to them like as if they are some special beings the more they will shit on our heads.Don’t put them on a pedestal the way you do.Remember you are on par with them as a professional and we can import doctors if necessary.
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Nihal Gunatilake / September 16, 2016
Hello – Change the name Royal College to Junius Richard Jayewardena Maha Vidyalaya and open a Rajakeeya Vidyalaya next to Oval Grounds or present Prison Grounds. There are no Royals in Sri Lanka now. Study well Doctor kids – Name Board of the school can be anything. bye- Nihal Gunatilake
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Veda / September 16, 2016
The very bane of free education…….
They are funded by our very own tax monies and even those poor down trodden people who pay indirect taxes.. then they bloody strike for every damn thing..
Who do they think they are… Scum of the earth in my view.. just coz you hold an MBBS does not say anything about you.
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Susruta / September 19, 2016
The only solution to the selfish arrogance of these medicos is to have more competition.
Open many more medical schools public or private and let prices and prestige be determined by the market.
In the meantime give visas to docs from overseas if they have recognisable qualifications without listening to the self serving tribalist nit picking and scare mongering by the protectionist medicos here.
I am sure they are enough public spirited men and women in this country among the medicos and others who can help to draft the rules to regulate these arrangements.
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AshyD / September 19, 2016
BULLSHIT !
How could Doctors call themselves “Professionals” when they do not behave as such. The present generation of Doctors are nothing but self serving blood sucking parasites living off the poor of our country.
Doctors don’t have an iota of respect for the noble profession they practice, where a good majority of them take bribes from Pharmaceutical companies to prescribe drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies service their vehicles, provide them and their families free stays at five star hotels, some get their monthly quota of “booze” delivered to their homes, some are even provided other other services to satiate their sexual desires, and the list is endless.
Most doctors practicing and passing out from our local universities are those from rural schools having passed their year five scholarships, or a generation before with their parents entering National schools having passed the same hurdle.
If one is to dig into their backgrounds there could be many skeletons in their cupboards or even of their parents, it is because of this upbringing that they advertise such unscrupulous behaviour.
Having had free education they and their parents too, think that everything comes free in this world and do not want to spend anything from the colossal amount of money they scrounge from poor patients with the so called “Channeling” practice with which they fleece poor patients with.
It would be pertinent to mention here how Doctors of yore conducted themselves one in particular, who had his education in a leading school in Colombo and retired as the Director of a premium Kandy hospital, who DID NOT indulge in “Private practice” till he retired from Government service.
Then ofcourse there was another Doctor, a leading child specialist again from Kandy, with a very lucrative “Private practice” whose new Pagero ran over his neck whilst his driver reversed and he died on the spot.
So our Doctors should be aware that “Karma” would eventually catch up with them and even if they don’t pay their children would have to bear the burden of their heartless actions.
Today Doctors strike and put thousands of poor patients at risk without any humanitarian concern for their well being.
What makes Doctors think that they have to get preferential treatment when it comes to getting National school admissions for their children.
Every profession like what the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has rightly pointed out is important to the smooth functioning of any nation. The garbage collector, the bus driver, the estate labourer, school teacher etc etc are all required for the country to go forward and if one of these professions cease to carry out their tasks there could be chaos in the country.
They are also professionals in their own right. To be called a “PROFESSIONAL” one should act, conduct and behave like one.
The word “PROFESSIONALISM” is aptly described in the Oxford English dictionary as Quote: “THE SKILL AND QUALITIES REQUIRED OR EXPECTED OF MEMBERS OF A PROFESSION”.
Does our Doctors have the ‘REQUIRED AND EXPECTED QUALITIES” definitely NOT. The GMOA is nothing but a bunch of thugs who are trying to hold the Government of the day to ransom to get their unreasonable demands met by hook or by crook.
The Government must call their bluff and get them onto the road and give them something to think of, by tear gassing, water cannoning and also baton charging them. This is what they are used to from their university days so it would be a good thing for the government to remind them a little of their past.
If they continue to hold the country to ransom the Government could turn some leaves back in our history and do what the late President JRJ did to Government servants in that infamous politically motivated strike in 1983.
Throw the GMOA out lock stock and barrel and recruit Indian doctors under the ECTA agreement and teach these blood sucking parasites a lesson once and for all.
The poor are not concerned of who treats them at the Government hospitals as long as they are treated on time and with care. Poor patients are today at the mercy of the GMOA and it is time that the Government turned the tables, for which most citizens of this country would be thankful.
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