Health
Must Be a Centralized Service
How
America is failing to come to term with coronavirus spread is the
focal point in this little brief but how Ceylon is taking giant steps
on its own accord with little help from W.H.O. is the result of the
Ministry of Health's capacity to rise up to the challenge.
I
have worked both in public and private sector and the private sector
can never take a lead in public health (private sector thrives on
failure of the Ministry of Health) sphere at all.
I
see President Trump who comes from private sector tries to overcome
the bureaucratic system and take a lead by stopping the flights from
China, Italy and Europe and stopping the spread in flight by airlines
including Singapore airline was a bold step; while the European
commission (IMF included) with its bureaucratic leading from Brussels
become a laughing stock of the world (Italy becoming the melting pot
of coronavirus with its own mishandling) and make its sphere of
activity in Europe the epicenter of coronavirus.
This
is not how things should have been managed.
I
am not sure of our doctors’ union who was bum sucking a government
of late could take any credit but they should take a lead to protect its
own force including nurses and health care workers by providing
protective gear including masks and gowns.
A
raw monk leading a nurses union is the other side of the coin, who
are hell bent on striking with a drop of a hat.
Having
said that help ministry established by the British was well organized
with Malaria Campaign our first success of eradicating Malaria in
1968 (still a threat from imported cases from India) and later
controlling cholera, infectious hepatitis, amoebic dysentery and
shigella and salmonella (typhoid) epidemics are our success stories of
the Ministry of Health.
Small
pox vaccine and polio were a success story when I was a kid.
Having
said that AIDS and venereal diseases are not a success story at all!
Our
immunization strategy is not bad at all but there is room for
improvement.
I
have seen even diphtheria and tetanus in this country and was a vocal
advocate of immunization scheme and introduced Mumps, Measles and
Rubella (M.M.R) in the private sector and then the late Ranasinghe
Premadasa was annoyed that all foreign guys/girls were coming to
Kandy to get their children vaccinated by me.
To
his credit he introduced M.M.R in public sector before his demise.
I
was failure as regard to chicken pox and I got chicken pox in my
second working year and herpes zoster when 55 years old.
However,
I was able to successfully introduce Acyclovir for chickenpox
meningitis in UK.
Failing to stop bleeding in thrombocytopenic
haemorrhage I tried using hyperimmune serum successfully in few
cases.
I
give credit to British system (NHS) and their free training of
medical graduates and I am against guys (in Ceylon) in the private
sector opening medical schools for their kith and kin with money.
Coming
back to coronavirus America not having enough ventilators for their patients
is shocking.
America
was a pioneer in ventilators.
How
come they become defunct?
U.K.
did not have ventilators in 1980s and imported Bell Ventilators from
America.
I
was one who was lucky then to use a Baby Belling ventilator in U.K.
(mastered its use starting first with CPAP) and big ventilators in
New Zealand.
Now this field is taken up by the fully qualified anaesthetists.
In
passing I must tell that I applied for a job where a semi-government
hospital who acquired a ventilator (late professor Carlo Fonseka was
in the interview board and a guy much junior to me representing
Health Ministry) wanted to select a candidate and offered the job to
a female candidate with no experience.
I
took my turn to blast the interview board for wasting my valuable
time (I was working in private sector, then).
The
bottom line is that Health Ministry should be centralized.
I
do not believe in Provincial Councils and decentralized health sector
with no coordination.
This
applies to Police Force, too and they are doing a wonderful job at a
trying time as a centralized force.
For
me Army should always be in barracks except when war is declared!
Using
them to beautify the city demean their uniform their discipline and
status and politicizes them indirectly in the process.
Finance
should be centralized and we haven’t had a civil servant in this
post over 50 years after late Ronnie De Mel.
Chandika,
Mahinda, even D.B. Wijetunge and Ranil and Ravi were failures of big
time.
Less I talk about NM Pereara is better.
We are in a debt TRAP now!
Education
both secondary and university should be centralized but our education
system is in ruins without direction with so many ministers and state
ministers.
Current
Coronovirus Control and our Malaria Success give us time to reflect
on our Centralized Health Ministry which is doing a salutary job.
