REMINISCENCE OF MY ASOCIATION WITH THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE

The article written by Dr. Nihal D. Amerasekera in the Sunday Island of January 8 prompted me to write about my association with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. Though I had dealings with the Faculty since 1972, it was only in respect of the establishment work pertaining to the recruitment, promotions. etc of the academic and administrative staff as the Senior Assistant Registrar in charge of Academic Establishment work of the University of Colombo.

It was in 1984 when I took over the reins as the Registrar of the University with the responsibility for the general administration of the university in terms of Section 31 of the Universities Act No.16 of 1978 that I got involved in the development of the infrastructure of the University of Colombo.

My first priority was to get the boundaries of the university done in a manner to be attractive. In and around the Thurstan Road and Reid Avenue campus areas the boundaries of the university was demarcated with ugly barbed wire fences. I got a presentable fence done along Thurstan Road, Reid Avenue and Prof. Wijesundera Mawatha at a cost of only Rs. 350,000/- At present I do not think this fence could be painted even for less than rupees three million.

Then my attention was drawn to the Faculty of Medicine. Those who were medical students before 1984 would remember the Faculty had a boundary wall only in front on Kynsey Road and that too with a gap between the wall and the clock tower which space was used by visitors to the two hospitals as their toilets with the nauseating smell emanating from there.

After assuming duties as the Registrar, I went to the faculty to attend a meeting of all the faculty. I introduced myself and told them of my plan to construct the boundary wall right round the Faculty. Many things used to pass out of the Faculty to outsiders, especially on the Maradana Road side. A seniorprofessor sarcastically said that they have heard these promises before which had not materialized, and mine too would be the same.

At that time I had already got the works engineer of the university to call for tenders and we had awarded the tender to the lowest bidder to commence work immediately. The boundary wall was completed within a month, and I also got the space between the clock tower and the wall blocked so that the “toilet” was no more.

One day when I visited the faculty, I found a building had been constructed on the university premises to house the transformer of the Judicial Medical Officer’s (JMO) office. The JMO’s office was behind the Anatomy Block and there was no boundary wall separating the two buildings. The JMO made use of this to get the transformer house constructed within the Faculty premises. As the damage had already been done and with none of those working in the Faculty bringing it to the notice of the appropriate authority, nothing else could be done to rectify this except to construct the boundary wall leaving only the building housing the transformer to the JMO’s office, which I got done.

I was able to get some funds from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to attend to the tiling of the floors of all the departments. I was able to do this through the engineer attached to the UGC who obliged me in many ways, and this was one of them.

The last thing I got for the Faculty of Medicine was a hostel for the women undergraduates. The People’s Bank had decided to give a hostel to a university to mark the golden jubilee of the bank. This hostel was to be named after the People’s Bank’s first Chairman, Mr. Vincent Subasinghe. The Chief Engineer of the bank, who was also an old boy of the same school as I, came and met me and told me of the decision. He wanted a bare land to construct the hostel. We went round the university premises and a site was selected near the Medical Faculty. Within six months the hostel was constructed to accommodate 50 women undergraduates from the Faculty of Medicine.

HM NISSANKA WARAKAULLE