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Many attempts to contact CMC fail
PHI says people rushed to vaccination centres paying little heed to dates given
Numerous calls and messages to officials of the CMC this week to get clarification with regard to the chaos were futile.
The Sunday Times tried to get the CMC’s “side” of the story but the calls were cut and the messages went unanswered.
“The CMC is not ‘directly’ under the Health Ministry. They have their own systems and are not bound to follow our directives. They also have their own organizational structure including their hospitals and centres and their doctors and staff are paid by the CMC,” a high-level ministry official told the Sunday Times yesterday.
The official implied that the CMC was a law unto itself and does it “their way”.
“Even when there was an exponential rise in the number of infections, they were trying to do it their own way,” the official said, adding that the ministry balahathkarengihillamedihathwune (they went forcibly and intervened).
The official added that the CMC with more than 1 million people under it should have more centres for systematic vaccination, rather than just six, and can always ask the Health Ministry for personnel because the ministry can send nurses from the main hospitals to supplement CMC staff when administering the jab.
Meanwhile, when the Sunday Times got through to ground level CMC staff they said that although no formal announcement was made, if people came to the Medical Officer of Health (MOH) office, they were issued tokens with the date when they could get their vaccination.
“But the people didn’t heed those dates but just rushed to the vaccination centres,” a Public Health Inspector (PHI) said, pointing out that some queued up from 5.30 a.m. and the staff were compelled to vaccinate whoever was there.
“The tokens were for the Thimbirigasyaya, Kirullapone, Pamankada-East, Kirula and Narahenpita GN divisions. But we were told to vaccinate everyone who came from any areas from Colombo 1-15. There were people coming from other areas requesting for the vaccine and they were over the age of 60, so we had to vaccinate them as well,” he said.
The PHI added that local government politicians and their associates also arrived without tokens and they had no option but to vaccinate them.