Who calls the shots?

COVID-19 management and accountability:

Hats off to Prof. Sunil Wimalawansa who has pointed out the “a major hiatus of “systems thinking,” relevant expertise, and leadership, of managing COVID-19 in Sri Lanka that continues to date”. (Ref. Feature Article on 05/11/20, titled, “Failure to Manage Covid 19: Who is Responsible? A hiatus is said to be “a short pause in which nothing happens or is said, or a space where something is missing.” In the run-up to the elections in August this year, there was a sense of Corona Virus being almost non-existent seen in the words and actions of the major players and leaders in the political arena. The public naturally would take the cue from such lackadaisical attitudes and practices. Therefore, it is indeed refreshing to hear “professionals” using their training, experience and expertise to comment honestly without holding the can for populist cover ups! In a moribund public service replete with its rising quota of sycophants and boot lickers each vying with the other to win some prominence, privilege or promotion from the Political Hierarchy such voices of professional integrity” are rarely heard and are fast becoming extinct!

The public is no doubt eternally beholden and grateful to the hundreds of medical personnel, para- medical and public health officers, and the steadfast commitment of the Military to implement government policy under the committed leadership of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. However, the vital question is whether the policy of containment/eradication of Covid-19 is handled by the real experts who have specialised in the relevant fields inter alia, public health, pandemic control, communicable diseases? Are generalists who enjoy sitting on committees and contributing nothing but their own egotisms and amateurisms, misleading the government on crucial and vital areas of public health? Are studies done without international peer review or validation merely to suggest that the second wave of Corona is more virulent and stronger than the first and therefore the responsibility of not being able to control it sufficiently somehow lies within the virus itself!

A responsible Government has a primary accountability in ensuring the health of its citizens. It is a healthy citizenry that will deliver on the economic front which is the bedrock of a nation. Therefore. the million dollar question asked by the People is how could a island state with a small fledgling beginning of a mere 200 COVID patients in the first quarter of the year do a gigantic leap to over 12,187 identified cases with approx.over 400 new patients detected per day. All this in a matter of a few months! The origin of the enormous cluster of COVID emanating from Minuwangoda Brandix premises still remains a mystery. The company continues to deny that over 300 visitors from India during the period under review had anything to do with the burgeoning virus. In which case, we are back to another “hunt the slippers” kind of conundrum attributing the countrywide spread in 22 districts to fish vendors of Paliyagoda! Contact tracing apart, laying the blame on the carelessness of the citizenry in following public health precautions and confining them to lockdown does not seem to solve pressing problems of how the small entrepreneur or worker and even big business will survive this crisis without being reduced to penury! The problem is compounded when clinical practitioners themselves admit that the number of PCR tests conducted since the first outbreak in March 2020 amounting were woefully inadequate. There seem to be transparency issues when some responsible officers threaten to pull out of Technical Committees over the failure of others to have GPS app to track virus! It was only in October 2020 with the new surge of the Corona virus that some regulations relating to control of Covid-19 were gazetted and PCR random sampling took place to the tune of 10,000 per day compared to abysmal levels earlier in the year. No wonder then that a former Director of the MRI was transferred over night after stating publicly that the Corona Virus had been present in the community for the past few months.

Therefore, it is the right of the public to know whether the Task Force and Ministry of Health administration entrusted with the overall management of Covid-19 and laying out policies and practices are drawn from the relevant medical specialties as public health, prevention of communicable diseases and pandemics, how many of these are Board Certified Consultants in the relevant field of such diseases and its transmission, with specific training for preventing the spread of communicable diseases in particular. Are nepotism and cronyism the criteria for the inclusion in such crucial policy making committees of some medical personnel who were seen on election and political platforms prior to the Covid-19 outbreak? Or, is the common malady in the public service, of being dumb and saying nothing controversial and truthful at meetings in the proverbial feudal manner that attends our polic makers?

Sonali Wijeratne

Kotte