In a news titled, 'NTUC gets set for another strike', The Island of July 16 reported that the JVP-led trade union is preparing the groundwork to launch a three day continuous strike to win their demands. TU officials would commence their awareness programme at workplace, starting with Colombo National Hospital. "In the same way the government is attempting to suppress union action, we have the right to take all actions we can, to make the strike a success", NTUC Chairman and JVP MP K. D. Lalkantha is reported to have said in a press briefing held on July 15.

Winning TU demands is one thing, but when innocent patients are used as tools to win such demands, at the grave risk to their lives, it is tantamount to violation of human rights, denying patients their right for proper treatment, which s civilized society would never condone. The government is duty bound to intervene to save lives of patients, when TU action is geared to leave patients to die on hospital beds.

There are minor staff in the Colombo National Hospital and other premier hospitals who are ever ready to abandon their workplaces at the drop of a hat.

The JVP has given these wolves that prey upon the lives of patients a promise of a big carrot - a Rs. 5000 pay hike - which would make them unmindful of their obligation to suffering patients.

The July 10 strike called by the JVP was a flop in hospitals as work carried out by the minor staff had been entrusted to private janitorial services. In future strikes, too, this procedure should be adapted to save the lives of poor patients.

Cost of living affects the lives of all and sundry. It is the majority of our population who are non-wage earners that are called upon to bear the brunt of day to day escalating living costs. If the JVP is a genuine people's party, it should agitate to bring down the CoL, without clamouring for wage hikes that would aggravate inflation.

Government should enact legislation to prohibit strikes in hospitals to ensure uninterrupted healthcare to patients, which is their basic human right. If miscreants in hospitals continue to disrupt services, they should be given the 'JR July 1980 treatment', and their vacancies filled with deserving unemployed youth.