By Anura Kumara Dissanayake –

Anura Kumara Dissanayake- The JVP leader

“We are holding this conference in order to elaborate the situation that has unfolded due to the ongoing Covid pandemic! We want to highlight the actions that need to be taken by the government, political parties and the public in order to avoid the impending disaster which is looming ahead of us! As we speak the situation with regard to this pandemic is getting dangerously out of hand on a daily basis as is proved by the data coming out in the last few days (7^th,8^th and 9^th May). Total of 7,192 patients have been identified in the last three days as Covid infected individuals! That is to say that 38% of the people identified have been from the last three days. 2624 on the 10th, 2672 on the 9^th, 1896 on the on the 8th and so on! According to the same source 63 souls have passed away in the same period. To put it in the right context this number of patients in actual fact has been murdered! This is a very dangerous situation. In fact some responsible institutions have indicated that this is a situation that can morph in to one with dire consequences for our country! Internationally we have been alerted that these daily figures as an ominous indication of what are to follow. The main bulwark against this danger which is the health department and its services have been found lacking. As an example there are over 100 patients who are unable to find urgent hospitalization and helplessly stranded in their homes. We keep getting calls from people desperate and lost. All government hospitals and subsidiary facilities are full and unable to relieve this situation. On the other hand health officers and other public servants of these departments find themselves hamstrung by the lack of equipment and basic needs to fulfill their tasks! In some hospitals where basic equipment like safety aprons, masks and gloves are lacking have even resorted to protests to alleviate their problems. The Public Health Officials are waging a losing battle under duress that has been hurled at them due to shortsightedness of the hierarchy of the government. They are so badly handicapped a work to rule campaign has even been mooted in some instances!”

“This lack of organization is not only confined to the Public Health Department. Even the security forces are demoralized in the same way. Even the single meal provided to them has been rendered uneatable due to the use of substandard rice and other raw material used in the preparation of their meals! There is a breakdown of morale in all public institutions handling this crisis! Public confidence has sunk to an all-time low level and there is an undercurrent of anxiety! We now see many problems that have surfaced in the handling of this Covid pandemic. Unless meaningful steps are taken there is a likely hood of this pandemic becoming a huge mass murder due to neglect! Such an end result is not the nature of the virus. The real cause is the wrong decisions, negligence, and lack of care by the president, the government and its executive public service arm! He has demonstrated that he is stubborn, prone to unilateral action and does not give ear to his expert advisors! For this very reason, experts of the health department have boycotted his meetings. They are denied any opportunities to state or give their expert opinions on important life and death matters! At this moment many lives are being sacrificed because of the president’s arrogant unenlightened attitude. This state of affairs did not come upon him without reason. On numerous occasions from the very beginning of this pandemic we alerted him that this catastrophy could be prevented relatively easily because this is an island nation and by virtue of that controlling our boundaries was to our advantage in fighting this epidemic. But now you can see how careless and negligent this government has been from the very start. One has only to look at the number of opportunities missed and the blunders made. Our president and his team of ministers that include the cabinet minister of health, the state minister of pharmaceutical production, supply and regulation, state minister for pandemics and Covid prevention should have issued meaningful instructions to those under them! What is it that happened instead? None of them fulfilled their tasks and did their duty!”

“On one side we have a female minister of health dumping earthenware pots of water in to the river with great pomp and pageantry! On another occasion she is gulping sugar syrup with gusto calling it a miracle cure! Then we have the Minister of Pharmaceutical Production also hugging another syrup and having a public carnival! We watched all that not with animosity but with curiosity. So what was the final outcome of this midsummer madness? In the end they brought what they called the Kaliamma Syrup (concoction) to the house of parliament! They debased our citizens to be vassals to be hunted! Make no mistake about this. Some media channels are responsible for publicizing this nonsensical madness. One channel became the patron of the Syrup madness… The Dhammika syrup! Is that channel now taking up the position that this syrup is not a cure for Covid? Let us not forget how the government channels very especially the ITN channel behaved and the position they took up in this mid-summer madness! The Ravana syrup was touted by the ITN by inviting the so called quack vedha to distribute the PANI (concoction) cure at their studio. Today the largest corona cluster has been detected at the ITN institution. So much for their miracle cure! Has the chairman of this institution apologized for this absurd public debacle?”

“Can irresponsible politicians and their lackey media friends solve this complex plague? The leadership and the machinery that propels it are utter failures! We are not in to praising anyone or castigating another individual but mention must be made of Dr Anil Jasinghe who was the Director General of Ministry of Health, who served in that capacity for a long period of time. The public were impressed by the work he did at the first phase of the pandemic. In the same tone the Chief Epidemiologist, Director, Central Epidemiology Unit, of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Paba Palihawadana performed her duties with a high degree of perfection.MRI Director Dr Jayaruwan Bandara also was able to render yeoman service during the first stages of the pandemic! Where are they today?”

“In accordance with government regulations these officers could have had their service period extended quite legitimately by a cabinet directive! These provisions are there to be made use of in emergency situations like this! Instead of extending his period of service Dr Jasinghe was pushed in to an innocuous position as the Secretary to the Ministry of Environment! Dr. Paba Palihawadana was recommended to be sent to the foreign service! Their experience in the fields of their profession was ignored and instead of making use of their wide experience and continuing their service in the fields of expertise they had, they were cold shouldered out of their fields of expertise! Today due to this kind of foolish conduct the entire machinery of the health sector of the country has been rendered defunct!”

“President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said that this pandemic is not a terrorist problem… However he did not base his comment on the present national health crisis. He did not hand over the problem to the heads of the health ministry who were the most competent personnel to handle this! Instead he brought in others to handle the machinery of the health issue. The break down and failure is so grave that the public no longer trust the data issued by the government with regard to this crisis! Many lopsided statements are issued from different people handling the machinery of the dept giving diametrically opposite views. When instead of giving the nation a true picture of the situation faced by the country we are bombarded with misinformation from several angles! This has deteriorated to a fiasco like the meteorological department giving weather predictions. That is the extent to which the Presidents’ machinery has failed! “

“It is the nature of this virus to evolve in different directions as conditions change….A team from the University of Sri Jayawardenepure issued statements from time to time with regard to the way the virus was tending to behave and evolve. Many countries in the world adopted methods to prevent new variants of the virus entering their lands. At one stage the possibility of the British strain invading their countries were identified and steps were taken to prevent this happening. No citizens were allowed to return to their home countries from Britain. All air traffic was stopped.”

“What steps were adopted by our president Gotabaya Rajapaksa? Did he succeed?! According to the information available and the data released to us the only variant that has been kept at bay is the Brazilian strain! The sad state of affairs in India has received wide media coverage! We have seen the heartrending and terrifying dilemma faced by the Indian population! Some countries prevented their citizens from returning to their home countries from India! Australia banned even her cricketers participating in the IPL from returning to the motherland! Did the rulers of our country act wisely?!”

“Some Indians arrived here on the 28th of April. Their PCR examination had been done on 3rd and 4th of May and that they had contracted Covid was confirmed. Being an island nation it would have been not such a big task to have cordoned off our land by controlling our harbours, airports and frequent coastguard activity! We could have prevented the entry of new virus variant from creeping in. In that respect it has been proven beyond doubt that our rulers have failed miserably! On the other hand what is the policy adopted with regard to the protection by way of vaccination? The president’s position was that no PCR was necessary as he was going to get everybody vaccinated. Be that as it may what is the position regarding the vaccination programme and the availability of the vaccine? What were the arrangements made to obtain the vaccine? By the end of December vaccines have been identified and developed in other countries. The manufacturing nations by then had begun to supply the vaccines to some countries that had made known their requirements! By the month of December the process of indentifying these vaccines and the manner of obtaining them were all in place well in advance as required by the suppliers. There was the need for indenting and the signing of agreements etc as a primary step. The government grossly neglected to attend these primary requirements.”

“By way of the Indian commitment to supply vaccines to the south Asian countries we were allocated 500,000 as our share! The WHO gave and set-aside our share of 265,000.From China we were entitled to almost 600,000 units. Russia gave 15,000.Of all these entitlements we were only able to purchase 500,000.The WHO has indicated that 70% vaccination rate should be achieved to remain on the safe side. According to this 145 lakh of persons should be vaccinated to be safe. To get a second dose it means we need 280 lakh of the vaccine. Apart from the donations this country received the government has only purchased 5 lakh of vaccine doses….We have failed even there. Those countries that remained alert while the vaccines were being made and tested got the first worms! Our government remained blind and inert. When we got the 1,265,000 AstraZeneca vials we ignored the WHO warnings and directions that should have been followed. The priorities to be followed were treatment of health department units, the police, armed forces, senior citizens and patients with underlying conditions. But what happened? They were targeted haphazardly. The result is we have over 30 doctors and 80 health workers ending up with the dreaded disease! Apart from this the WHO provided a scheme as how the general public should be vaccinated. What happened Instead? The protocol was not followed. Some were given the vaccination as a response to a telephone call or as a favor for a letter from a crony! The whole vaccination programme was rendered a fiasco! The vaccine should not be dispensed in this manner over a programme of favoritism! It is the right of everyone to receive this vaccine but we have a right to be told when it is going to be available. We saw via the media how the PM of Canada and the PM of the Netherlands waited for their turn to be vaccinated and how they were disciplined not to jump the queue. There are well programmed methods adopted in other countries unlike here. Every citizen has a right to know when his or her vaccine is scheduled to be given!”

*To be continued…

*From the speech made by Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the media conference on 11/05/2021