‘Five-year prison term, the best remedy’:

WP plagued by over 430 quacks

by Carol Aloysius

Over 430 quacks are currently posing off as qualified general practitioners in the Western Province. “The number could be much higher than this when we complete our surveillance of the Colombo district”, Central Coordinator for the Elimination of Illegal Medical Practitioners, Dr. Haritha Aluthge, told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

He said there were 1,600 general practitioners in the Western Province excluding Colombo. “We have received information that 430 are quacks. We are now discussing with officials of the Attorney General’s Department to impose a five-year prison term on these persons.”

Of the 430 quacks detected in the WP so far, over 25 percent (210) were Ayurvedic physicians. “Although they are traditional doctors, they use Western medicines and Western methods to treat patients”, he said.

Fining quacks was not the solution to this problem, he said. “From past experience we have found that they pay the fine and resume their practice. Jailing them for five years is the only way to eliminate quacks from our health care system”, he said.

GMOA sources said there were an estimated 40,000 or more quacks posing off as Western qualified medical practitioners.

“The numbers are rising each year. They are a threat to public health as they provide substandard and wrong medicine which put people’s health at risk,” he said. The GMOA has filed legal action against 13 quacks. “Till the green light is given to jail them, they have been fined Rs. 10,000 – Rs. 50,000,” Dr. Aluthge said.

The number of quacks now outnumber the 16,000 qualified Western Medical practitioners in the country.” From 2007 we have been holding talks with the Police Department seeking information on quacks.

We are starting with the GPs and thereafter we will get details of specialists and other doctors too. An islandwide survey has been launched to seek information”, he said.