GMOA accuses:

Govt flexing law to accredit SAITM

by Carol Aloysius

The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) expressed concerns over the government's ambitious plans to formulate a mechanism to regulate and maintain standards of teaching hospitals, claiming flexing the norms and criteria could pave the way to accredit South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine in Malabe.

Accepting Health Minister Dr Rajitha Senaratne's media statement about the government's plans with reservations, GMOA media spokesman Dr Navin de Soyzsa said, "Before formulating any such mechanism, it is only right that all stakeholders in the medical community be consulted on how it should be formulated and for what purpose."

Pointing out that the Sri Lanka Medical Council had given its conditions and recommendations to regulate the standards of State hospitals, he said, "If this is a move towards setting up private medical colleges, we need to be consulted before setting up a private medical institution."

Dr de Soyzsa warned that the failure to do so would result in lowering standards of medical education in the country. "The government should have consulted prior to setting up the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) so we could give our suggestions and guidelines. But no one was consulted. SAITM got its degree awarding status by a gazette notification by the then Secretary of Health S.B Dissanayake," he said, pointing out that the the gazette notification however is contradictory and controversial, because while stating that the new teaching hospital would be an 'investment,' it also stated that a government bank had agreed to give a Rs 600m loan to fulfill the recommendation criteria of a proper medical college. "In short, the gazette notice admits to the fact that the so called private medical college has deficiencies" he alleged.

He said after the GMOA had met President Maithrapala Sirisena the then Minister of Health, a five-member committee had been appointed to get recommendations and the committee had agreed there were shortcomings in the new private medical college.

Following the findings of the Committee, a press release had been issued to the public signed by the former Health Secretary Dr D. C. R. Ruberu asking the public not to send their children to this medical college.

"We are not protesting against medical education but rather the lowering of the quality of standards of medical education. The standards must comply to certain requirements laid down such as the number of staff according to the bed strength, availability of physical resources such as Xray machines , all lab facilities and radiology facilities, trained staff .

He said three months ago, the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) had sent a team to evaluate the standards of SAITM. The team had found that the apart from the lack of physical and theoretical resources, there was also a lack of proper and permanent lecturers as the majority comprised visiting consultants.

The SLMC sent a letter signed by the Registrar of the SLMC, Dr Terrence de Silva and Professor Carlo Fonseka to the President and Health Minister about these findings, stating that it was not able to grant permission for SAITM graduates to work in state hospitals here. That is tantamount to saying that the malabe hospital is not producing doctors," he charged.