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Crook turns cancer unit into ‘gem mine’
KANDY – An employee of the Kandy General Hospital has been nabbed by the Investigations Unit of the Ministry of Health in the act of using the Cobalt Therapy Machine of the Cancer Unit to treat common geuda (a kind of mineral corundum) stones and make them look like blue sapphires.
The suspect together with bags full of geuda stones found near the machine were handed over to the Kandy police.
According to the Kandy hospital authorities and the Crime Investigations Branch of the Kandy Police, the suspect had earned approximately Rs. 10,000 per day by treating geuda stones.
The police are conducting investigations to find whether any other hospital employees were involved in the gem treatment operation by abusing hospital equipment worth over Rs. 50 million. The suspect could not have operated in isolation without collaborators in the gem business and investigations would be conducted to arrest the person or persons who contracted him to treat geuda stones in hospital, a senior police officer told The Island.
Deputy Director, Kandy General Hospital Dr. J. B. Herath, Hospital Secretary Ananda de Silva are assisting Kandy HQI. CI, Anuruddha Bandaranayke, IP. D. Jinadasa, SI. Fonseka and WPS, Kanthi Perera in the investigations.
Geuda is a form of mineral corundum, or sapphire, found in Sri Lanka. They are semitransparent and milky in appearance and therefore have little value. After heating geuda to roughly 1800 degrees Celsius, the aluminum oxide lattice-work of the gem is disrupted and cooling greatly improves both color and clarity. Although many stones get destroyed in the process of extreme temperature fluctuations, some stones gain the look of blue sapphires and fetch extremely high prices.
