by Dilanthi Jayamanne

The work on the Children’s Rehabilitation Centre (CRC) has come to a complete halt as politicians and doctors battle over the issue as to where it should be located. A spokesman for Ragama hospital said yesterday that the best place for the CRC was the Kandana District Hospital (KDH) which has many unutilised wards.

This hospital was identified as the best place to house the CRC, he claimed.

The spokesman said that he had come across 500 to 600 abused children during the past few years and around 11 to 15 abused children are brought in to the Ragama Teaching Hospital a week. "There is urgent need for a CRC even though you do not get such sort of units in any other country", he noted.

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Nutritition allocated the building for the CRC at the KDH.

"I would say that for political reasons the Minister who boasts of other rehabilitation in the North-East does not want the CRC to be set up there," the spokesman said.

The Minister of Health P. Dayaratne said a final decision would be taken later.

According to informed sources many Pradesheeya Sabha members live in the vicinity of the KDH and therefore they do not even want the hospital to have even a proper mortuary. "The KDH does not have a proper mortuary at the moment, the one that it has is "dilapidated," he said. "But when there was a proposal for a new mortuary the Pradesheeya Sabha members were dead against it," they said.

Likewise the politicians of the Pradesheeya Sabhas will oppose proposals for the KDH, they alleged. "What they want is for the hospital to close down," sources claimed.

The project has received US 85,000 from the International Labour Organisation. "But we will be lucky if we could use it," they added.

When contacted by ‘The Island’, the Minister of Rehabilitation said that he did not understand why mental and physical rehabilitation could not go hand in hand.

"At any rate the Ragama Rehabilitation Hospital (RRH) is not catering to my voters but to the whole island," Jayawardane said.

Minister Jayawardane blamed it all on the lack of proper communication. "The RRH staff believe that the CRC would be run by NGO’s, that the Rehabilitation Ministry is going to take over the hospital and that the Minister of Rehabilitation is planning on bringing in Tamil children and leaving them at the hospital."

"My ministry has nothing to do with the hospital", the Minister claimed.

"Is mental rehabilitation not part and parcel of medical care just as physical rehabilitation?" the Minister queried.