Sunday Times 2
Lanka, the Land of the Rising Sons or…?
We sat back amidst all this hullabaloo about the Covid pandemic, curfews, drug racketeering and match fixing and, with a month to go for the general election, reflected on an issue which journalists are prone to do: Whither Sri Lanka after the election?
Nurses wearing yellow and white PPE in the forefront of the COVID-19 battle.They should be provided the opportunity to become medical practitioners
Reflecting in the lingo of horse racing, we looked at the runners in the race to parliament and realized that there are quite a few thoroughbreds lined up. There is the Rajapaksa political patriarch, Mahinda with the brothers Chamal and Basil, closely followed by son Namal. There are the two sons Yoshitha and Rohitha who are not running this time but have plenty of political potential.
Sajith Premadasa is the leader of the large breakaway party, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya. He is the son of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
The leader of the UNP is Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has generations of political blood coursing through his veins. His father Esmond was no common or garden politician but a press baron more powerful than ruling politicians and performed many a political miracle. Ranil is the nephew of President J.R. Jayewardene.
The leader of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) is Dinesh Gunawardena, son of the ‘Father of Sri Lankan Marxism’ Philip Gunawardena.
Tissa Vitharane is the leader of the Samasamajist Party, the oldest Marxist Party of Lanka and is the nephew of the acknowledged leader of the party, Dr. N.M. Perera. Vitharane is not running in this election.
Considering this impressive lineup of leaders — although some are now long in the tooth — we wondered whether Sri Lanka could become the Land of the Rising Sons after the election. But then we realised that most of these sons and nephews were in the last parliament and even in those before it.
Thus, would it fit into the description given in this column last Sunday: Old arrack in new plastic bottles?
The Unsung Heroes
of the Covid-19 War
With the general elections just one month away a new brand of ‘heroes’ is being marketed. They are the ‘Covid-19 Heroes’ who are said to have saved the country from the pandemic.
The Glory of the National Saviour, the second time over is being conferred on Gotabaya Rajapaksa by the Rajapaksa backers of the Pohottuwa party although the President has not made such a direct claim. But this is inevitable because President Rajapaksa having scored his presidential victory with the backing of the Pohottuwa and is calling for a two-thirds majority at the election with the support of the pro-Rajapaksa party to implement his mandate. Already he wears the crown of National Saviour of Lanka from terrorism together with his brother. The Rajapaksas need not be coy about this new title because it is the inevitable fallout of the president and the prime minister being from one family, the same party and the same government.
The Covid pandemic was, no doubt, considered a ‘war’ by President Rajapaksa, an ex- military officer who fought it in the only way he knew: a military operation. He appointed Army Commander Shavindra Silva as the chief of operations who set about the task like going to war. Of course, the actual battle was against the deadly enemy virus, about which he knew not very much. It was the task of the medical personnel on the field — men and women — doctors, nurses, humble hospital workers who cleaned the wards, particularly the immaculately kept Intensive Care Units, medical technologists, right down to those who carried corpses to the mortuary and crematorium workers .
These personnel, in the opinion of many observers, are the heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since most of them lived at home with their families, they risked carrying the deadly virus home and infecting their loved ones.
Thus, when soldiers risked being killed on the battlefield, they were not endangering those at home far away. The medical personnel particularly doctors and nurses were risking the lives of their entire families, every day. They had no lengthy time for relaxation away from their infected patients because of the great demand for their services. Not even a day could be spared, for some of them who had to be back at work the next day and so it went on, day after day.
Perhaps the process has still not come to an end for these intrepid people. They surely must be the undisputed heroes in this
unusual ‘war’.
There were reports that they lacked basic protective equipment — masks, gowns and gloves — at the initial stages. Whether some of these dedicated medical professionals perished in their valiant attempt, we are not aware but if so the dead as well as these surviving unsung heroes cannot be forgotten.
The poor salary scales of nurses and minor employees of the Health Department are well known. They have to be rewarded not in the way of monuments but increased salary scales and prospects for advancement of their careers. Nurses should be provided opportunities to become medical practitioners.
Trade unions of doctors and nurses have over the years contributed much to the public opprobrium that has been building up against their professions. Wildcat strikes staged not in their professional interests but for political interests of the union leadership has been a main reason. The excuse of ‘a few bad eggs’ as cited in the United States today and ‘a few rotten mangoes’ in South Asia is no longer acceptable.
Rotten eggs and rotten mangos seem to accumulate in plenty in these times and have to be rid of soon. In Lanka, dedicated doctors and nurses have converted much of the public ill-will against their professions to that of appreciation by the commitment exhibited during the pandemic.
To the discerning public these medical personnel should be the heroes of Covid 19 War and if a superhero is called for, we suggest Dr. Anil Jasinghe, the Health Services Director General, who directed the real battle against the deadly virus from start to finish.
(Gamini Weerakoon is a former editor of The Sunday Island,
The Island and Consulting Editor
of the Sunday Leader)