Letters
View(s):President fights kidney war, yet a 15% VAT on dialysis
At a time when the President is waging an all-out war to eradicate the chronic kidney disease from this country, it is indeed sad that a VAT of 15% is levied from kidney patients who go for dialysis in private hospitals.
Most of these patients who go to private hospitals do so as facilities for dialysis in state hospitals are limited and inadequate to meet the growing demand for dialysis from outdoor patients. Most of these patients find it difficult to meet their daily needs of food and medicine, let alone the cost of dialysis.
Hence I earnestly appeal to President Maithripala Sirisena who is genuinely concerned about these unfortunate patients to waive off the VAT charged by private institutions for dialysis from patients.
Rev. Ranjit Perera
Piliyandala
True Brits
Cometh ‘the finest hour’
Within the silence of EU-power!
Then half-a-crown
Was better than none
43 years later the will to run!
Irene de Silva
Colombo 5
Don’t sell the land, use it as recreation space
The sale of the Welikade Prison land, after the shifting of the prison, would make big money. As the property is situated in a prime area, it would no doubt fetch a good sum, unless some who are involved in the sale manipulate it to enhance the bank balance of their family members as has been the practice in our country.
The residents of Colombo city and its suburbs need more areas with jogging tracks, football / cricket grounds, green turf, shady trees and many other facilities. The population in the city and the suburbs is ever increasing with new residential complexes / flats coming up in numbers. The Victoria Park opposite the Town Hall or the Galle Face Green, in time to come, would be congested with the visiting crowd.The people need a place for recreation, children need a green turf to run about on and the elders need a place to sit and stretch their feet.
I hope authorities will change their plans and not sell this property but use it for recreational purposes.
Hameed
Kandy
University ragging: Stop this sadism
A little late in the day, nevertheless, the tough stance taken by the Government against ragging in universities is highly appreciated.
Ragging in universities should be stopped once and for all. Every government that came to power allowed this cancerous behaviour to snowball and now a monster has been created. The problem is that Sri Lanka’s university students are ignorant of what ragging is all about. With authorities tolerating sadistic ragging, students have unwittingly conditioned themselves to think that ragging freshers is nothing but to bring mental and physical pain to freshers. This seems to bring a great satisfaction to them. This I believe is a mental problem.
The vicious circle continues when the freshers who undergo sadistic ragging become seniors. They inflict similar or greater pain on freshers. This is all the more reason why ragging should be stopped.
When university students have a problem with the authorities, they often assume the moral high ground. Yet the same student leaders have no qualms over defending sadistic ragging.
B. Joseph
Wattala
Revamping health services: Strike a doctor-patient balance
In the Sunday Times of June 19, an advertisement appeared regarding revamping the Health Services.
I assume that the Minister of Health is planning to improve the condition of public hospitals or deal with issues such as government doctors in private practice and their unhealthy trade unionism.
Though issues are so numerous and identifiable, the basic imbalance of power between the doctor and the patient is the source of most of the trouble. The patient is at the doctor’s mercy and not the other way about. Doctors present a bold and united front against patients but the latter have no means of combating it. Economics textbooks too now feature this example under the chapter supply and demand.
Is there any way in which the balance can be restored? Perhaps readers will respond.
Wilfred Jayasuriya
Via email
MPs, learn from your counterparts in India and UK
It is disheartening to note that the Government has approved a proposal to provide luxury vehicles to Ministers ranging from Rs.30 million to 70 million at a time the country is facing a severe financial crisis. Do we have to spend such large sums on vehicles when a reliable car of a good make could be bought for less than Rs. 15 million?
Why cannot our Ministers travel in Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas or Mazdas? The most amazing thing is that the Opposition is not as vociferous as they are on other matters since they did the same thing while in government.
Our representatives in Parliament should learn from their counterparts in India where they use locally made cars and in UK where some MPs use public transport to attend Parliament.
I.Marambe
Via email
We thank Govt. for sorting our pension anomaly, but what about arrears?
We as public sector pensioners are thankful to the present Government for solving the pension anomaly we had lived with from 2006 to June 2015. Though the previous administration promised to solve the anomaly, it only paid lip service to our grievances.
However, there are unpaid arrears which we are entitled to. A Government that vows to uphold ‘justice’ should turn its attention on this matter. If it is burdensome to pay the arrears in one payment, we propose that provision should be made in the budgets of next three years to pay the arrears in instalments.
Newspapers reported in June last year that about 300,000 pensioners were benefitted by the Government’s move. Since then, many pensioners have died and the numbers have reduced, while a good number of them are on the deathbed.
Thus it is all but fair and reasonable for a Government committed to upholding justice to consider their request on humanitarian grounds.
We earnestly appeal to the President, the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister, the Public Administration Minister and the Director of Pensions to consider our request and to grant us the relief we are seeking.
On behalf of suffering pensioners
Ariyapala
Ganegoda
Boralesgamuwa’s garbage collection gone to the dogs
During the past, the collection of garbage in and around Boralesgamuwa was done in a systematic manner. Especially, the highly populated Embillawatte Road and Karuwawela Mawatha had a regular collection day.
However, of late, in the past year or so the collection has been haphazard and not been done on the due day. Recently, we were told to separate the garbage — food refuse into one bucket and other refuse such as paper, plastic bags and tins into another. The food refuse were to be collected on Tuesdays and other garbage on Saturdays.
Many people were happy with this method because the food refuse was to be used for some purpose. However, the delays in collection have caused much inconvenience to the residents, not to mention the stink, with flies and maggots.
The situation has gone from bad to worse as the garbage is not collected for weeks by the urban council. Residents leave their garbage bags and bins by the road for easy collection. Since they do not come on the specified date, dogs tear open the bags and roads are scattered with garbage causing a stink and making the area unhealthy. People have to find their way through strewn garbage on the road.
This is indeed an unacceptable situation. Numerous appeals to the urban council have fallen on deaf ears. The collection of non-food refuse garbage has virtually come to a halt. Most of the time, residents bribe the collectors to take away this garbage as they never come on Saturdays. There seems to be no one taking responsibility for this lapse and we do not know whom to complain to. We are regular taxpayers, but for the past six months, the situation has deteriorated to an alarming extent.
G. Livera
Boralesgamuwa
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