Mobilize community physicians to peripheries in all districts to coordinate Covid control measures – GMOF

‘Don’t let them idle in air-conditioned offices in Colombo’

The role of community physicians during prevailing pandemic is another disaster. There are 123 specialist community physicians in the country and of them, 88 are based in Colombo. At least during the past 16 months of the health crisis in Sri Lanka, they should have been mobilized to peripheries and stationed in all 25 districts to coordinate and monitor Covid-19 control and prevention activities, the Government Medical Officers’ Forum (GMOF) said.

Expect for a few, the contribution of the other specialist community physicians is below the optimal level of expected performance to the Ministry of Health, the GMOF’s president, Dr. Rukshan Bellana asserted in a statement.

“They seem to be happy to stay in Colombo and do clerical work in offices in air-conditioned comfort, rather than get down to their actual jobs in relation to their specialty. Without concentrating on community health related matters, they while away their time attending to extraneous matters during a critical time when their services are needed to fight the spread of the virus”, it stressed.

The Health Ministry should lay down specific performance targets for them immediately. Community physicians in the Epidemiology Unit are trying to oust the director who is a strict and straight-forward person. There are a few eying the post of director, and it’s no secret that ongoing covert moves are directed towards the agenda of a trade union, it claimed.

The government has to spend around Rs. 12.5 million in tax payers’ money to train a community physician to gain specialty over a five-year period (including one year training abroad on full pay), apart from paying their salaries. Can anyone explain to the tax payers why these specialists are idling in Colombo at a time a deadly virus is raging in the country?, Dr. Bellana asked.