Urges long suffering public to act against them :

Minister lashes out at health trade unions

HEALTHCARE, Nutrition and Uva Wellassa Development Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva yesterday lashed out at health sector trade unions and urged the long suffering public to act against them.

"It is time that the public get organised against trade unions which act in such an irresponsible way", Minister de Silva said.

Addressing a seminar for mediamen at the Health Education Bureau in Colombo, Minister de Silva lamented over the sort of Trade Union Movement Sri Lanka has where instead of supporting the progressive work of the government in the health sector, they use their might to crush and destroy progressive and people friendly health projects of the Ministry.

The Minister said that although he had seen workers go on protests and picket to get their demands, he had not seen workers promoting projects to prevent the spread of a particular disease in society.

"I have not seen a single member of the Medical profession doing that. They like others stage demonstrations or protests to win their demands.

The trade union movements or the so called the "Civil Society" had not picketed or staged demonstrations to improve the quality of health service. Even if there are public welfare conscious groups, such groups are very insignificant groups. This has been our biggest obstacle in providing a better health service," he added.

Citing a case in point to clarify how the Trade Union Movement contributes to disrupting the projects aimed at providing better health facilities, the Minister related how he was prevented from implementing a project to train a new group to carry out testing of samples of sputum for TB diagnosis.

"As we do not have sufficient qualified persons to do the testing, I decided to train a new group of persons in consultation with the WHO. Here we take nearly 18 months to train persons to carry out this test. The World Health Organisation (WHO) experts told me that they can do so within three weeks.

When I wanted to implement the training programme, I faced heavy protests. They refused to give training or allow the use of the laboratories. Don't you think the Tsunami Wave should have been directed towards this group of 'scientists'?," the Minister asked.

The Minister said there were the so called "scientists" who test 40 samples during the day and 400 samples in the night because they could claim at the rate of Rs.22.40 per sample. But we do not have money to pay them that extra.

"I found it is not possible to work with this set of "scientists" and the project will be never be a success with the trade union movement."

"We may have all the money from WHO and other sources. But we cannot proceed with our good work when there is a movement against the people under the cloak of trade unions and good work is sabotaged.

"So we could not train and do you expect me to get down experts from overseas to train ?. The media should know this. They should expose such things.

You have to use your pen not only to expose the shortcomings in the health sector but also be an instrument in detecting and exposing what hinders people's friendly health programs designed by the Ministry.

"If not people will get severely affected by TB and many may die. But it is no matter of concern to those so called "scientists" as long as they get Rs.22.50 into their pockets. This is the type of selfish Trade Union and culture we have and how could we give a better health service to our people under these circumstances," the Minister queried.

He invited the public to mark the World TB Day not only as a day to pay tribute and salute those who have done yeomen service to prevent the spread of TB but also as a day of protest against those who obstruct in providing a better health service in the country."

Referring to the World TB day which falls on March 24, the Minister said that the theme of the Day was to salute those who serve with dedication.

"But we must also protest against those who obstruct the good work. In the times of the Sinhala kings we could have punished them the best way fitting. But now we live under a very strange type of five star democracy in this country.

What can we do ? The media should write about it. They should write to expose those who are responsible in preventing and blocking the maintenance of a good health service. Write against the Trade Unions who use their power against the wellbeing of the poor masses."

He said that in comparison to the status of TB in the World in the South East Asia there was no cause for fear as Sri Lanka's position was very much better than many of the countries in this part of the world.