Specialists take their fuel woes to Health Ministry Secretary

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Many medical specialists were finding it difficult to report to work due to severe shortage of fuel, President of the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) Dr. LakKumar Fernando said yesterday.

He said AMS had sent a letter on the difficult issue to Health Ministry Secretary Dr. S.H. Munasinghe on Saturday.

“This is more so in the peripheries where certain cities have not had fuel in their localities for many days. This situation is likely to deteriorate in the coming days,” Dr. Fernando said.

It is not possible for doctors to enter gas stations with special permits when there are so many others in queues. People who have been waiting in queues for hours naturally get angry and tense when preferential treatment is given to anyone, Dr. Fernando said.

“Such situations can lead to public unrest creating further chaos. Along with the multitude of other essential services in our country, we feel that healthcare service providers should also be considered as a high priority regarding access to fuel during this crisis. Therefore, we strongly feel that the responsibility of devising a practical, plausible mechanism to facilitate our members to get a quota of fuel to travel to his/her workplace lies with the Ministry of health. Please consider that it will be a must to provide and ensure an uninterrupted healthcare service throughout the country,” Dr. Fernando said.

The AMS President informed the Health Ministry Secretary that until such a mechanism is established, AMS members will be compelled to inform their respective hospital directors about their inability to attend needy patients physically and to provide telephone or online advice/consultation when required purely due to lack of fuel to report to work.

“Even though this is highly unacceptable in any clinical setting, we don’t see any other practical alternative to this problem in the near future. Further, it is important to note that most of the hospitals in our country have not been able to provide onsite, official accommodation to all specialist medical officers and hence they are compelled to reside away from the hospital,” he said.

The AMS also asked the Secretary to the Ministry of Health to grant them an appointment to discuss this issue.

“This is not an attempt to ‘misuse’ our position but an effort to mitigate a crisis in order to save lives of patients as well as the good name of the national health care delivery system. Failure to address this issue on an urgent basis would compel us to discharge us from clinical responsibilities due to constraints beyond our control. Please treat this matter on an urgent basis,” he said.