All professions need to develop

middle level technicians - OPA President Dr. Hilary Cooray

OPA President, Dr. Hilary Cooray at the induction ceremony of the 26th President of the Organisation of Professional Associations said that he will limit his address to two subjects, namely the Professional’s Role in Society and second Standards and Ethics.

Here are excerpts:

“All professionals, apart from the practice of their respective professions have a vital role to play in society. Most of us are products of free education. We have been educated by the tax payers of this country.

Therefore, we owe a debt of service to the society. The valuable role the professionals should play cannot be over-emphasised. The professionals can be considered as occupying the apex position in any society’s wealth of human resources,” he said.

Dr. Cooray said, “there are serious problems besetting our society today. The most serious one being the issue of the need for peace and reconciliation. This is an issue which had been with us for the last two decades.

I like to quote from a passage of Charles Summer who said in 1811 during the American war, I quote “give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman and child in an attire of which kings and queens would be proud. I will build a school house in every valley, over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to the gospel of peace.”

Again I say this to all professionals in Sri Lanka, we as a nation, and especially we as professionals who hold respected positions in society, it is imperative that we get ourselves intricately involved in the yearning for peace in this country. We have a duty to promote realistic scenarios for peace and keep the hopes of our nation alive.

“We have an excellent opportunity to talk and educate them on these matters. The attitude of the majority of people of this country has to change and they ought to believe in a pluralistic society, where people of all races and religions could live in harmony.

People of all walks of life must accept and respect the fundamentals of essential freedom, such as the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

No democracy can survive if it does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of the minorities. We as professionals need to speak out without fear of favour.

These are principles of civilised living. Last year, the OPA set up a committee on peace and reconciliation under the chairmanship of Engineer Taldena and it meets regularly to discuss these issues, he said.

Moral standards and ethics: The maintenance of moral standards by a professional is an important issue. In the recent times, I feel there is a serious erosion of moral and ethical standards of the professionals.

The OPA has responded to this by having the year 2005 annual sessions chaired by immediate Past President Lakdasa Taldena comprehensively addressing this all important aspect of professional behaviour and ethics. Some of the recommendations and outcomes of this, I have incorporated here.

Personal standards: How could you transform your professional skills to something more meaningful, rewarding and gives personal satisfaction? You will enhance and refine your knowledge and skills, if you have concentration, commitment and focus which gives you greater experience, depth, maturity and balance.

President Abdul Kalam, the distinguished scientist who is the President of India, in one of his addresses asked a most important question. This is what he asked - “got 10 minutes for your country? You say your government is inefficient, you say our laws are too old, you say the railway is crumbling, the roads are full of potholes, airlines never depart and arrive on time, mails never reach their destinations.

You say our country has been fed to the dogs, you say and say. What do you do about it? He goes on “we go to the polls to choose the government and after that forfeit all our responsibilities. We sit back waiting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us, while our contribution is totally negative.

We expect the government to clean up when we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick up a stray piece of paper and throw it into the bin.

We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms, but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want the hospitals to provide the best medical services, medicines and food, but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to some of the staff.” He goes on, but I have quoted enough.

Archbishop of Colombo Rt. Rev. Dr. Oswald Gomis who was the chief guest said: “While in the past our competence in most of the fields of knowledge was limited, the realm of practice maintained very high standards based on certain ethical values and principles.

The limited knowledge the professionals had at that time was optimised to serve humanity to the best of their ability, while naturally bringing dividends also to them. Unfortunately with many, the process appears to have reversed today.

The wealth of knowledge the professions are today endowed with is being exploited more for the benefit of the professional than for the client at whose service the professional is, be it in the field of medicine, law, engineering or any other. This is evident in most of the professions today.

Archbishop Gomis said: “In the first flush of our newly found freedom, all elements in the country close their ranks and there was a sufficient measure of cohesion to build a moral and ethical conscience in the country. Unfortunately, in the period that followed, there has been a marked decline of the spiritual and moral ideals upheld by our ancestors.

Guest of honour, Romesh de Silva, PC at the induction of the 26th President of the OPA said that, in the society we see around us, we do not see that all persons are equal, there being several persons more equal than others out of political patronage.

He said, “A professional is different to a trader. The professional takes upon himself a duty when he enters the profession. The motivating factor of a professional is not money, but the responsibility to carry out his duties properly and conscientiously. Money cannot be the basis of his work and in fact not even the reward for his work. Money is not and cannot be the foundation of a profession.

The professional has several duties. First and foremost, he has a duty to himself to act according to his conscience. Secondly, he has a duty to the person who engages his professional services. And thirdly, he has a duty to his profession and to the country.

“Today, in society we see around us, we do not see that all persons are equal. There are several persons more equal than others out of political patronage or perhaps out of the race to which they belong, or the religion they profess.

As professionals, it is our duty to ensure that all persons of whatever religion, race or creed are equal in this country. There are no citizens more equal than others. This country belongs to all citizens and belongs equally to all citizens.

Secondly, we must know to act with courage and fortitude. It is apt to remember what John Kennedy said when he was inducted as the President of the United States of America. “Let every nation know, whether it bears us ill or bears us well, that we shall support any friend, oppose any fore in the quest of freedom.”

And when I took oaths as the President of the Bar Association, I changed it somewhat and said, “let every person know, whether he bears me ill or bears me well, that I shall oppose any friend and support any foe in the pursuit of my duty, because the pursuit of my duty transcends the bonds of friendship.”

The need of the hour is for professionals to ensure that all persons are equal. Let the cancer of favouritism be excised. There can be no real peace in this country unless all persons recognise, not only in words, but also in deeds, that all persons are equal. Not until Sri Lanka forms a lovey mosaic of individually unique pieces can peace descend on this our beloved motherland,” he said.

Professor Asoka N. I. Ekanayake, guest of honour speaking at the induction ceremony said: “To every batch of new students I quote the time honoured criteria that are said to define a good dentist. It is said that a good dentist must be firstly, technically competent. Secondly, biologically oriented and that means standing firmly on a bedrock of scientific evidence based medicine and thirdly, socially sensitive.

So important. And I do feel that Hilary tends to epitomise those qualities to a considerable extent. Admittedly there are many honest and truly dedicated professionals in Sri Lanka. But it seems to me, the dominant public image of at least the medical and legal professions in this day and age is of hard headed, conceited professionals who are largely enslaved to money.”

Professor Ekanayake said, the international community seems to be observing Sri Lanka’s human rights record with great anxiety. There is the seeming, unprecedented public anxiety about the credibility, integrity and independence of the Judiciary.

Neither should be expected that our universities would be the last bastion of reason, rationality and enlightenment in these dark days. In many parts of our universities, ragging which is an euphemism for campus torture, perpetuates a degraded, mass undergraduate culture, that is the very antithesis of the liberal values that define a university.

“And with too many academics pre-occupied with lucrative private earnings, when they are not assiduously amassing the points required for their promotions, there is a lack of moral outrage against such things in the academic community.

In my own faculty, the small number of idealistic students who resist getting ragged are largely ostracised, treated with contempt and subject to chronic harassments, both within the faculty and in public places. And remember, those torturers active in our campuses today are the professionals of tomorrow.”

He recalled the work of two professionals, one a Lawyer Paul Benninson and the other a Doctor, Dennis Berkitt, from whose inspiring life and example professionals may learn a thing or two.

OPA Annual Sessions - 2007

Theme: ‘Sri Lankans reawakening Sri Lanka’

When ‘Ceylon’ was granted Independence in 1948 it had everything ‘going for it’, so much so that Lee Kwan Yu stated that it was his ambition to develop Singapore to be another Ceylon. Though it was a multi-racial, multi-linguistic, multi-religious and multi-cultural society there was then very little, if any, dissension, between Ceylonese, based on these differences.

The population of about 12 million, was administered by a cabinet of 12 ministers together with ‘outstanding public servants’ who did not hesitate to even disagree with the political authorities when the occasion demanded it. Inbuilt checks and balances facilitated good governance. The Judiciary held the scales even, without fear or favour. The debates in Parliament were a treat to watch.

But alas! Fifty nine years later all checks and balances have either been dismantled or rendered ineffective; corruption is rampant; good governance is only talked about; dissension between linguistic, racial, religious, caste, and even family groups, plaques this once resplendent isle.

With a population of 20 million, we now have 105 ministers. The plunder or abuse of the natural and other resources goes on unabated. Sadly, Sri Lanka is on the brink of being branded ‘a failed state’.

When India ‘achieved’ Independence after a long and bitter struggle, it immediately established a permanent National Planning Commission which has consistently guided whichever party was elected to power. India’s phenomenal growth can largely be attributed to this.

Sri Lanka, on the other hand, had no such permanent commission and the policies adopted were subject to the vicissitudes of successive politicians and their supporters. This is a lacuna that needs to be filled with no further delay.

Many of us owe most of the expertise we may have acquired, to the free education we have received in this country. It is therefore obligatory on our party to avail of what may well be, “the last opportunity” to prevent a permanent state of anarchy, and even annihilation, in Sri Lanka.

India, with a population of over 1 billion and China, with over 1.3 billion have less than 30 Ministers each. Even Bangladesh with 150 million has 22 ministers. For Good (or effective) governance, the number of ministers in Sri Lanka, which has a population of 20 million, should not exceed twenty. An objective classification of the functions to be assigned to such ministers is as follows:

(1) National Unity,
(2) Finance and Planning,
(3) Defence and Security,
(4) Foreign Affairs,
(5) Justice and Constitutional Affairs,
(6) Information and Communication,
(7) Fisheries & Ocean Resources,
(8) National Infrastructure, Power and Energy,
(9) Transport, Shipping, Aviation and Tourism,
(10) Irrigation, Water Management, Natural Resources, Environment and Forestry,
(11) Public Administration and Home Affairs,
(12) Culture, Youth Affairs and Sports,
(13) Health, Social Welfare and Women’s Affairs,
(14) Education, Science and Technology and Human Resource Development,
(15) Employment and Labour,
(16) Regional Development, Local Government, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction,
(17) Food, Trade, Consumer Affairs and Co-operatives,
(18) Land, Agriculture and Plantation Industries,
(19) Industrial Development and Rural Industries,
(20) Housing and Construction.

Reiterating the words of Winston Churchill “If we were to open a quarrel between the past and the present we shall surely find that we have lost the future.” In an attempt to reawaken Sri Lanka to achieve its full potential the OPA will establish, for each of these twenty ministries, committees of volunteers consisting of ‘a Chairman’, ‘one or more Deputy Chairmen’, and ‘at least 7 members’, to formulate objectively the policies which would determine the goals that should ideally be pursued by such ministries.

These committees will meet at least once a fortnight from April to July 2007. In August, the policies of groups of five ministries will be reconciled for consistency with each other. Finally, in September the policies of the four groups of 5 ministries will be integrated and an integrated plan will be presented at the Annual Sessions to be held in October.

The views of political parties will not be canvassed in the preparation of this objective plan. It is, however, envisaged that the policies laid down in such plan will be so compelling that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for our elected representatives to disregard them.

Conscious of the fact that those who may volunteer to serve in any one (or two) of these committees, will be sacrificing their valuable time for this purpose, I appeal to you, to kindly make this sacrifice for the benefit of our beloved motherland. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, we need to press on toward the goal of ‘Reawakening Sri Lanka’ to realise its full potential as ‘The Paradise Isle’.

We earnestly appeal to you to kindly respond, to Elmore Perera, President Elect, OPA at No. 275/75, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera Mawatha, Colombo 7, indicating the Committee/s and the capacity (Chairman/Deputy Chairman/Member) in which you volunteer to serve, on or before March 25, 2007.

The initial meeting and orientation of all volunteers will be held in the auditorium of the OPA commencing at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, 2007, states Elmore Perera, President-Elect-OPA, in a press release.

Questions and Answers

Training of Dental Therapists

Question: My daughter is being treated for her dental caries by a Dental Therapist in her school. She is very good and takes a lot of interest. She also told us that the government has stopped training Therapists due to objections by the Government Dental Surgeons Association. Could you elaborate the reasons for this?

- Mrs. S. Gamage

Moratuwa

Answer: The training of Dental Therapists is held up due to an issue concerning the uniform of the Dental Therapists as they continue to refrain from wearing the stipulated uniform. The Department of Health Services considers this as a breach of discipline and has requested them to wear the stipulated uniform as a prerequisite to commencement of training.

The Government Dental Surgeon’s Association has requested the Ministry of Health to implement a new curriculum in training Dental Therapists in the future and this should be based on Preventive oriented work. The GDSA has also stressed the need for the Therapists to wear the stipulated uniform before the commencement of training.

**********

Foundation for Buildings

Question: There are many types of building foundations available. In which basis those are decided? If there any specifications/theories please clearly describe it?

- Mr. A. R. Nauzath - Sainthamarutu - 11

Answer: The type of foundations are decided on the basis of many relevant factors such as the soil conditions, bearing pressure of the soil, depth of the water table, depth of the foundation, load on the foundation effect on neighbouring buildings and surroundings, wind loads, earthquakes etc., etc. There are many types of foundation, including piled foundations, raft foundations, strip foundations, and others. They can be constructed in different materials, such as reinforced concrete, random-rubble, brick masonry etc.

The material used will be based on the type of structure as also the ground and other conditions as referred to above. Soil investigations under expert guidance may be required in some instances. It is best if the owner consults a qualified civil engineer, regarding the most economical and practical solution to any foundation problem.

The Institution of Engineers SL, (IESL), has now prepared a register of Chartered Civil Engineers considered competent to undertake the structural design of buildings in various categories, (ie. low, middle and high rise), and they may be consulted for further advice, at - (Tel 2699210).

**********

Fruits for Diabetes Patients and Nuts for Cholesterol

Question: “We often see in medical articles differing advice on the Diet for those suffering from Diabetes. For example some doctors advise you to eat any fruits while others say to avoid very sweet ones like kolikuttu bananas.

As fruits contain only fructose, is this correct? Also for those having Cholesterol, Avocadoes and nuts are recommended by some. Is it possible to publish an article on these aspects from an authorative source, such as the SLMA?

- D. D. S. Jayawardena

Colombo 7

Dietary advice for conditions like diabetes as published in newspapers and books can only be in general terms. It is not good practice to rely only on these articles as diet bas to be tailored to the individual depending on the severity of the diabetes or other condition, medication, exercise and so on.

In other words, rely on the advice of your Family Physician and the specialist, if any. Consulting too many doctors can lead to confusion as there are different management and treatment plans that give similar results.

Fruits contain fructose, yes, but this is broken down to glucose eventually and reaches the blood stream as such. So for some individuals, say if the diabetes is poorly controlled, choice of fruits would be a factor to consider.

More or less the same is true for those with raised cholesterol levels (note, not “having cholesterol” as we all do, and need it). The point to remember is that foods like avocados and nuts, if permitted by some, should not be placed in the “any amount” category but in the “limited quantities” category.

The request for an article will be transmitted to be appropriate SLMA Committee.

**********

How to become a member of the OPA

Question: Since lately I have been reading your article “Daily News OPA at Your Service”. I have read 27 professions coming under the OPA. My friend and class mate Prof. Chula Goonasekera former Dean from Peradeniya Kandy has always shown lots of interest in this Organization. He had wanted me to come and join this elite learned people to put things right in this country.

I work as a Senior Flight Purser (Flight Attendant) for Sri Lankan Airlines formerly Air Lanka and Air Ceylon. I wonder my colleagues and the Pilots, as Flight Crew who work in the aviation industry come under the category OPA? Please enlighten me.

- Ranjan Dias - Jayasinha

Dehiwela

Answer: OPA membership is only available to members of Member Associations. According to your profession you may join one of the 27 Member Associations or else from an Association along with all others in your profession, if there isn’t one already and apply for OPA membership for your Professional Associations.

**********

Purchase of Property in Sri Lanka by Non-Resident

Question: I am a doctor working in the UK. I have a British Passport and wish to know whether I could buy property in Sri Lanka. If not what is the procedure to buy property.

Dr. Anton Rasiah, Colombo 6

Answer: You can buy property in Sri Lanka subject to the payment of 100% Tax. The tax level reduces if you buy a flat in a high rise depending the floor level. Alternatively you can obtain dual citizenship to avoid such high tax.

Send in your questions

The Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) will cover questions in all professions and subjects of common interest to the public in the “Daily News OPA at Your Service” page every Thursday.

Questions can be directed to the OPA on e-mail

[email protected]  or

[email protected] 

[email protected] 

Fax: 94 11 2559770 or

write to the Professional Centre, 275,75, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera Mawatha, off Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 7. Please make your question brief.