It is very sad the poorest of the poor are suffering due to the doctors strike, poor people can’t do without government hospitals. If they need specialist treatment they have to go to Base and General hospitals or the National in Colombo, spending money for transport for treatment, but return home disappointed.

The rich and the affluent are not worried about the doctors strike they can well afford to go to private nursing homes and private medical practitioners and pay whatever the fees demanded. It is the poor who leave their homes in the mornings and get numbers and join long winding queues and spend the whole day in the hospitals and return home late in the evening.

The doctors who strike work should remember that the State has provided free education to them and granted Mahapola Scholarships to most of them during their university days. Thereby they are obliged to serve the people who have provided funds for them to become doctors.

The state also send them on Scholarships abroad to obtain specialist qualifications overseas to obtain in their respective fields and return to the country to serve the people, but what happens is that most of these doctors having qualified do not return home to serve the people.

Fifty years ago, we never heard doctors going on strike. They performed their duty with dedication.

Every religion in this country asks its followers to look after the sick, the feeble, the destitute and the old. But today money does the talking? Medical consultants spend most of their time in private nursing homes, some neglect their work in government hospitals and the people have been forced to see them at private hospitals paying exorbitant fees which most of them cannot afford to pay.

No doubt the doctors have their problems, these can be discussed and negotiated without causing added suffering to the sick.

It is also stated that these doctors do not have a ‘Pay cut’ during the strike period, as the workers who go on strike in the private sector and hold the poorest of the poor to ransom.
F. A. Rodrigo Sathianathen
Kelaniya