9.5.2008
Sri
Lanka's government Nurses Association today gave up their
strike at Ratnapura hospital after three patients died
due to unavailability of treatments.
The
Marxist Jantha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) backed nurses'
trade union came to this decision as the media gave wide
publicity to the deaths of the patients and to the blatant
disregard on the part of the trade union members for the
public.
However,
the trade union issuing a press release today disowned
the deaths of the patients and further threatened the
government with an island wide strike, if disciplinary
action against its members continued.
The
strike action was launched three days ago when the Health
Ministry initiated disciplinary action against a male
nurse who had reproached a trainee doctor few days earlier.
The nurse was later transferred to another hospital pending
investigations and the JVP backed trade union initiated
a strike action demanding the transfer of the doctor.
The
nurses' trade union, going against the accepted norm in
country’s frequent health sector strikes, refrained
from emergency services. They even locked up the medicine
stores of the hospital making the medicines unavailable
even for patients under critical conditions.
Sri
Lanka is the only country in the region that provides
free health service to the public spending billions of
public funds on doctors and nurses salaries. However,
the service is frequently disrupted by strikes even with
fatal consequences due to internal clashes among various
categories of health service employees.
Courtesy - cp