[CITIZENS' Mail - (22-05-2017)]

The Problem of SAITM

I am writing a reply to Balachandra and Prof. Wilfred Prerera who have commented on my letter regarding NCMC and SAITM. Balachandra states that the problems of 1989 are not related to the NCMC problem. I agree that other political issues were there but the spear head of the revolt was provided by University students. They were fighting mainly against privatization of medical education.

As a young lecturer I took part in the funeral procession of Thremawithana a medical student from Colombo and two other university students.

The funeral procession started from the Colombo Medical Faculty. Photographs of nine medical students from Colombo Medical Faculty, who sacrificed their lives in this struggle, are kept in the student common room. The students hold a remembrance day every year. Similar situations prevail in all faculties of all the universities that were operational during that period.

Balachandra also states that in the common examination NCMC students scored good marks. This indicates they were better than the Colombo students. The marks obtained are still available and on the average the NCMC students scored less marks than the Colombo students. However this does not mean they were incompetent as a pass is what is necessary to practice medicine.

Prof. Wilfred Prerera states that we need more doctors. We all agree on that but what we need is competent doctors. Allowing improperly trained doctors to practice medicine will be a disaster for the patients.

We will also lose our reputation as a country that produces competent doctors. His statement that in Britain the doctor population ratio is 1 to 20 must be a typing error.

The doctor population ratio in USA is 3.3 to 1,000. However we also must remember that the doctors have to be paid. The per capita income of these countries is very high. So we cannot do things according to them.

The television programme from two ministers and UGC chairman has further complicated the SAITM issue by clearly indicating their biasness towards SAITM. There were personal attacks on Dr. Padeniya which is not acceptable to an educated audience. Dr Padeniya is the president of the GMOA. His statements are those approved by the majority of the GMOA members.

The ministers also tried to degrade the government health sector and the government universities. One statement made was that all universities are below 2,000 in world rankings.In the world university rankings 2016-2017 (Times Higher Education) Colombo University rank is 980. I am surprised that the UGC chairman was unable to correct the minister in this issue. The solutions offered by the government remind me of the division of cow between the village head and the farmer. The village head gets the front portion and the farmer gets the rear portion.

All expenses are paid by the village head and all the benefits go to the farmer. SAITM students are to be given clinical training at government expense at a government hospital and the fees are collected by SAITM.

Prof. C. Deepal Mathew

Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo