“Bring Your Own Catheter,” Or Obstetrical Care In Sri Lanka
Emil van der Poorten
Not so long ago I wrote at some length about the fact that my neighbours and I are reduced to repairing the roads supposed to serve us so that even a bullock cart could traverse them. This continues to require volunteer labour by those who can least afford to forego a day’s wages in such a pursuit. Not for us roads carpeted for the use of Lambhorginis, BMWs and (after theCommonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) Rolls Royces in which “the chosen” travel!
Now, we have an even more sinister and cruel expansion of the “DIY (Do-It-Yourself)” principle, this one in the sphere of public health, with a slight difference – it is “BIY (Bring-It-Yourself)”
“P,” a middle-aged employee was not her usual cheerful self a few morning’s ago and her ill-humour appeared more than justified when she told my “other half,” the closest thing to a “foster-mother“ our female employees have, what ailed her.
Her youngest daughter was about to have her first baby which would be P’s fourth grand-child. Due to the intricacies of traditional pre-delivery practices in the matter of who the mother-to-be stays with before the birth and the fact that the father worked away from home, her first-born would be greeting the world at a teaching hospital in the Hill Capital.
Sounded like a good arrangement which would ensure up-to-date facilities and good care by skilled doctors and support staff.
However, all was not, as that old colloquialism has it, “tickety-boo.” Read More
Twentieth Century Classics by Rajiva Wijesinha is a good introduction to the many authors and the varied genres of literature from the 20th century – dealing with the more famous names such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie to more obscure names like Angus Wilson and Somerset Maugham.
Twentieth Century Classics By Rajiva
Twentieth Century Classics by Rajiva Wijesinha is a good introduction to the many authors and the varied genres of literature from the 20th century – dealing with the more famous names such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie to more obscure names like Angus Wilson and Somerset Maugham.
As the introduction quotes, ‘a classic is a book that never finished saying what it has to say’ – thus it is important to ensure that they are always available to new audiences so the messages in them get passed on to new generations and aren’t lost in the sands of time. Sadly, many of the current generation misguidedly view them as old fashioned, stuffy and irrelevant in today’s technology controlled world, and thus many of these literary gems have been left to collect proverbial dust. Sometimes the only exposure to these classics people of today get is due to the compulsory reading lists in school. This book aims to change these misconceptions and encourage more people to take up reading these books for pleasure. Read More