Scholarship issue.........

Sixteen foreign trips in seven months
Nadira Gunatilleke
(Daily News)

Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena has decided to streamline the procedure of granting scholarships to Ministry staff. A member of the Ministry can go abroad on official scholarships only three times a year, following this directive, a Ministry spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, Minister Sirisena has taken this decision after considering the complaints received from health staff and studying the procedure of granting scholarships implemented by the Ministry.

In one instance a Health Ministry member had gone abroad 16 times on official scholarships during the past seven months.

The spokesman said that Minister had discovered that only a particular group of staff went abroad on scholarships. That group had obtained all the scholarships offered by the Ministry and other affiliated institutions.

According to the new system, one health staffer can go abroad on official scholarships only three times per year. Several Hospital Directors forwarded complaints to the Minister stating that they had not been granted any scholarships by the Ministry or related institutions despite their qualifications and experience, the spokesman said.

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Dear Colleagues,
Seems to be a good bit of work...
Let's see the out come.
During the time of Siripala,his non medical henchman went for Dengue prevention seminars to WHO and one of our medical administrators went to Japan to get the training to repair "Lifts",replacing the engineer.
Unless all the scholarships are advertised well advance and transparency is maintained nothing will be materialized....

Is it back?

Lankadeep reports that the ministry is going to tighten up the regulations of the private medical institution act.

http://epaper.lankadeepa.lk/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&view=book&id=916

Once Mr.Siripala tried to put mediLcal officers even in to jail if they do not get registered under it's council.

While accepting the fact that the individual private practices also should be regulated, We can not agree to a political body( like that of the Private medical institution act) where the medical profession is not given the due prority.

This council of private medical institutional act should not come to the teritoty of SLMC to regulate the medical profession.

Few years back implementation of this act was stopped by the GMOA with the full blessings of the membership(Hope that at least some can remember the history)
There is high chance that the history getting repeated.

Should the GMOA do the duties of the Ministry?-“YES” /”NO”

There had been a debate over this issue for a long time.
Some may say that this should be of the lowest priority since the membership has got many more expectations than this.
But it is quit apparent that all the evil (and very rarely some good also)has come out of this place-“Suvasiripaya”
Everybody has to understand that this government institute is also equally corrupted (if not more than) as all other government institutions.
So, decisions are taken not in a “Doctor friendly manner” ,but based on political and personal agendas.
If the GMOA just remain as a body, which acts on “complaint basis”, will necessitate the use of a multi barrel attack instead of a simple shot gun to defend the profession.
This will then result a lot of public agitation and aggression against the “doctor population.
Hence the GMOA should be an “initiator” and a “promoter” of the steps taken for the betterment of the doctor population and a “monitor” of all the evil processes in hidden cells.
So the answer is “when and if necessary”.