Health Ministry hands over IDP healthcare to northern officials

by Dilanthi Jayamanne

The Health Ministry will hand over the task of providing healthcare services to internally displaced camps in the Vanni to health officials of the Northern Province with effect from tomorrow (01).

"We will be pulling out", Health Ministry spokesman said. "Health officials of the region will take over".

He said the Cabinet had only given approval to the Ministry to maintain services at the camp for six months following the arrival of the internal displaced to camps in Vanni last May.

The spokesman said there were only around 95,000 internally displaced persons still remaining in the camps. The Ministry spends over one million rupees per day on sustaining the services in these camps. The health workers have to be paid their overtime, batta and transport allowances as well as funds for their food.

The spokesman said the medical equipment in the camps would be handed over to NPC Governor, Maj. Gen. (Retd) G. A. Chandrasiri to be used at the Chettikulam Base Hospital.

Nurses will not be a problem as they were from the Vavuniya Nurses Training school. Government nurses arrived to assist at the camp as soon as the displaced started coming into Chetticulam during the humanitarian operations last May. Since then nurses from the training school in Vavuniya took over.

There are approximately 105 doctors serving at the camps. Forty Five of them would be left to serve the remaining IDPs while the others would be transferred to hospitals in the North and the South of the country according to the merit list, the spokesman said. The Ministry would discuss the transfers of these doctors with the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) before coming up with this year’s transfer list.

Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has already issued instructions to Acting Health Secretary Dr. Nihal Jayatilake to prepare the merit list of the doctors who are to remain at the camp during a review meeting held last Thursday.

The remaining medical staff would also be given replacement in other hospitals in the country. He said the ambulances would also be handed over to Northern Province health care services.

How the health has become a major issue at the election stage!

Dear Colleagues,
This is just to show how the bad management of health related issues has become a major political issue at the up coming Presidential election!

"The situation is completely under control "-Is this true or is it part of a political campagin?

By Cassandra Mascarenhas(Sunday Leader)

The outbreak of the AH1N1 virus better known as swine flu in many parts of the country in the latter half of last year has resulted in over 40 deaths islandwide. The virus spread rapidly amongst school children, forcing schools around the country to temporarily close down, causing much havoc within the public, sending anyone with flu-like symptoms rushing to the nearest hospital out of fear that the virus had been contracted.

The epidemic was brought under control however, with hospitals being equipped with special units to handle patients with swine flu, vaccines brought in from various countries to be administered to the patients and the public being informed of what measures should be taken to avoid contracting the virus.

Although there is still a possibility of being infected, the preventive measures taken by the Ministry of Health have worked as the number of cases, which rose rapidly last year, has now fallen. “The situation is completely under control and the number of cases have dropped drastically. More than 90% of the hospitalised patients have now returned home”, assured the Head of the Epidemiology Unit, Dr. Paba Palihawadena.

****************
Dear Readers,

Sometimes professionals can issue statements in favour of a political movement while some genuine statements can be wrongly considered as partial.Which one is true about the above?

Beyond "Dirty Cartoons and double games!"

Few days back our face book page demonstrated an image, as an eye opener.As most of you have already seen, it was from one of the links (dedicated for political gossips)in infolanka web site. It was an image developed based on a vial containing foreign material, in order to attack the minister of Health and then to the present government.

It raised mixed reactions from the readers, when they saw this image.

Some were with the view that we as a profession should go an extra mile to chase this minister away.
Some had the view that this is a part of the “double game” of the GMOA.

Any way the basic idea of initiating a dialogue was successful.

We hope that it is not forgotten to many of us that the tradition of revealing health related issues including low quality drugs specially those containing waste substances was initiated by one of the assistant secretaries of GMOA (Dr.Upul Gunasekara.)
That propaganda later fueled by many others has now gone to the extent of black listing some Indian drug companies! .This shows the power of information and the extent a dialog can shape up the final outcome.

There is no doubt that the elimination of the present minister will benefit the whole health system, but it will not eradicate all the problems faced by our membership.As the authors of this blog we share a different view on finding sustainable solutions to our professional issues ranging from transfer matters, replacements, grade promotion and unacceptable working environment to salary restructuring
They need much more intellectual dialogue and consensus within the profession. Hence the prime duty of the EX Co of the GMOA should be to mediate this in order to develop and strengthen our own system.
If not even a new minister comes our profession will be still vulnerable to his dirty tactics!

Nurses to demand for solutions to issues

By Hemanthi Guruge(Daily Mirror)
The Government Nursing Officers Association (GNOA) said yesterday it would stage a protest campaign today in front of some hospitals around the country including the North and East demanding solutions to the issues of nurses.

The Convener of the GNOA, Saman Ratnapriya told the Daily Mirror they would stage a protest today in front of the Colombo National Hospital, Karapitiya, Kandy , Polonnaruwa, Jaffna and Trincomalee hospitals urging government to resolve the issues.

He said they were demanding Rs 3,000 as risk allowance for all nurses to establish a professionally acceptable salary scheme for all nurses, to establish a four-year nursing degree and to create necessary changes for recruitment procedure.

He noted they would stage a token walk if the government does not solve issues of the health sector within a short time. The token walk would most probably be held before the Presidential Election, he said.

The GNOA informed the Health Minister, Health Ministry officials and the Salaries and Carder Commission about the issues of the nurses, but so far they had not take any action to resolve these issues, he alleged.

GNOA launched a campaign of protest on December 30, last year in front of fifteen hospitals around the country; thereafter they took a decision to stage a one-hour protest urging government to resolve the issues of nurses.

*******************************
Dear Colleagues,
We have to be vigilant about the activities of Saman Rathnapriya in this volatile political environment,because there is chance of him to "fish in troubled water".