GMOA to up the tempo from next week

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) will strengthen the ongoing countrywide awareness campaign and go for strong trade union action from next week to protest against the Higher Education Minister’s ‘shameless’ efforts to mislead the public ignoring carrying out his official duty on SAITM, GMOA Secretary Dr. Navin de Zoysa said.

Addressing a press conference at the GMOA Head Quarters in Colombo 7 yesterday, he said that a part of the responsibility of ensuring the quality of the medical education in Sri Lanka in order to provide a safe and high quality medical service to the people belongs to the Higher Education Minister.

The GMOA is carefully watching whether the Higher Education Minister is taking decisions in order to protect the future of the country and its people without giving into money.

According to Dr. Zoysa, what the Higher Education Minister should do now is obtain the Compliance Certificate for SAITM from the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC). If he cannot do it, he should cancel the gazette notification issued by the Higher Education Ministry in the past during the time of former Higher Education Minister S.B.Dissanayake. The current Higher Education Minister has powers to do so under the Universities Act number 16 of 1978.

Dr.Zoysa pointed out that former Higher Education Minister S.B.Dissanayake issued a `gazette notification’ without a date in 2011 pointing out the shortcomings in SAITM and again issued another back dated `gazette notification’ in 2013 without the Compliance Certificate from the SLMC which says that SAITM has met all requirements from 2009.

But in 2009, the SAITM did not have the hospital.

The SAITM made a request to obtain degree awarding status in 2011 and not in 2009 as stated in the 2103 gazette notification.

“The Court of Appeal judgement very clearly says that the female medical student got admitted to SAITM in 2009 in order to obtain Russian MD degree but came out from SAITM in 2016 with a SAITM MBBS degree,” Dr.Zoysa added.