Doctors, don’t those lives matter for you?
Kanthi
Jul 07, 2016
The GMOA is on a major protest against private medical colleges, against selling medical education for money. But, all these doctors are fully prepared to sell the medical service for money. There are many to talk about money taking the upper hand over education, but there is no one to talk about the services getting neglected for the hunger of money. Even if there is someone, doctors are capable of intimidating that someone with the authority they enjoy as a remnant of the feudal system in an underdeveloped, backward country like ours. This is an instance of how two lives were victimized by some inferior quality doctors and the GMOA that tries to save those doctors from blame.
Kadadorage Dinesh Nalaka, a resident of Naranwita in Gampola admitted his wife Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Malkanthi Dissanayake to Gampola Base Hospital around 11.30 pm on 25.11.2013. Seven months and two weeks pregnant, she had been expecting their first child. The reason for her admission to hospital was severe difficulty in breathing. A doctor by the name Rosamala Gunaratne admitted her to a normal ward where an intern was in charge. Normally, women who are more than seven months pregnant are not admitted to normal wards, because both the patient and the unborn child could get threatened by germs of other patients. However, Rosamala has done so after obtaining advice over the phone from the obstetrician/gynecologist on call.
In the next two and a half hours, a very inhuman episode took place. With severe breathing difficulty and suffering from high blood pressure, Malkanthi did not get any treatment. Unable to bear the pain, she cried out, jumped out of the bed, but the intern doctor, a female, had scolded her saying she was lying. Dinesh was expelled from the ward, saying he was pampering her.
As Malkanthi was fighting for life, the obstetrician/gynecologist on call or the specialist physician did not come to see her. Malkanthi fell on the bed for the last time with a brain hemorrhage. By the time the specialist physician came, both Malkanthi and her unborn child were gone forever, due to the fault of doctors.
Seeking justice, Dinesh petitioned the then chief justice Mohan Peiris, who ordered the IGP to conduct an investigation. The CID’s special investigation unit took charge of the investigation, and doctors who gave evidence said the cause of death was that no proper treatment was given for Malkanthi’s high blood pressure condition. At the time of her death, the doctors on call, obstetrician/gyancologist Vedaralalage Chandana Karunatilake and specialist physician Basnayake Mudiyanselage Nilanthi Renuka Kumari Basnayake had been selling their services at Suwasevana hospital in Kandy, and even had obtained overtime payments from the state hospital.
Their inferior conduct did not stop there. At the conclusion of the investigation, a criminal case was filed against them in the Supreme Court, but together with the Attorney General’s Department officials, the GMOA is making attempts to justify the the accused doctors and to save them. Not even a disciplinary inquiry has taken place against this criminal negligence by the two doctors. Doctors associations which come forward to influence the government over other problems and international agreements do not speak about this. Instead of taking action against doctors who tarnish the medical profession, what they do is to use their civil powers to save their colleagues. That is to make sure that other doctors too, can act without responsibility without any fear.
Also, attention has been paid to the Doluwa MoH office, where Malkanthi had attended her prenatal clinics, over its failure to identify and treat her high blood pressure condition. On a complaint by Dinesh to the Central Province director of health services, an inquiry took place, but the MoH office had furnished a fake clinic card. The Gampola ASP’s office is investigating that too.
Legal action is taking place along five lines. There are court cases SC/REG/CHA/MFA/01/14 in the supreme court, two compensation requests 6999/2015 and 7007/2015 under case B 5905/14 in the Gampola magistrate’s court and case 7965/2016 against Doluwa MoH office over preparing bogus documents. The evidence given by the doctors in the investigations are almost like confessions, which prove their guilt, but the GMOA tries to save them. Also, a doctor has proposed to Nalaka to settle the matter for money, saying people do make mistakes.
The GMOA is worried day and night over doctors who could be created without any standard in the future, but it does nothing to prevent the degradation of their profession by acting against doctors who are already among them, who tarnish the image of the profession. Dinesh has lost his wife and the unborn child. But, the doctors responsible continue to be in service today by using the civil power their profession enjoys. Dinesh continues to seek justice from courts for his dead and gone loved ones and also to prevent someone else from suffering the same fate.
Those saints of doctors who show their civil power to the entire country, we have to ask you this. Gentlemen, who victimized the lives of Malkanthi and her unborn child? Don’t those lives matter for you?
