5th Column

My dear Keheliya,

I thought I must write to you this week because you are, as they say, the ‘man of the moment’. It maybe that Uncle Ranil is celebrating one year of being in office but there is hardly any mention of that in the media. Instead, you are in the news and hogging the headlines day in, day out!

Of course, it is not for the right reasons that everyone is talking about you. Every day, we hear horror stories of how the health sector is in crisis, of doctors leaving the country by the dozens, of drug shortages and recently, of patients dying as a result of cheap quality drugs being imported by you.

There is a school of thought that the responsibility for much of this crisis rests on you. There are calls for your resignation. There is now even a plan to bring a vote of no-confidence against you, although we don’t know when that will really happen because our opposition is as inefficient as you are.

Through all this, you have been stubborn and unmoved. You have clearly indicated that you have no intentions of resigning, even though your continued presence in the Health Ministry is helping no one, least of all the government. Then, Uncle Ranil also hasn’t been brave enough to sack you or shift you.

Keheliya, controversy is nothing new to you. You began your political journey with Lalith and Gamini when they opposed Preme (Snr.) thirty years ago. Those dear departed gentlemen, both great ministers who did much for their country will be turning in their graves if they saw their protégé now!

You also had a habit of changing camps, so you could continue to be a minister. That is why you shifted loyalties from Uncle Ranil to Mahinda maama who trusted you enough to put you in charge of the media. Now, you have turned a full circle and are back in a Cabinet with Uncle Ranil as your boss.

I don’t know why you, a hotelier by training, was entrusted with the Health portfolio. Over the years, we have had some illustrious Ministers of Health such as S.W.R.D., George Rajapaksa, Gamani Jayasuriya and Ranjith Atapattu. Do you really think you fit in such a line-up, Keheliya?

It is not that we are surprised at what is happening now in the health sector and your response to it, though. That is because we clearly remember an incident some fifteen years ago, when your son was a schoolboy at Royal and he was punished for a serious misdemeanour, by the Principal of that school.

You were a minister at that time. Mahinda maama was the boss. You used all your political clout to intimidate the Principal by visiting the school accompanied by your minders and then sitting in the Principal’s office and demanding that the punishment be withdrawn. That too made headlines then.

Not even Mahinda maama’s advice on the matter satisfied you. Ultimately the Principal withdrew the punishment under duress. It was the same boy, unpunished and not disciplined at your insistence, who tried to open an aircraft door and jump to answer a call of nature, while flying with the cricket team!

Wanting to jump into inappropriate places is a trait that seems to run in the Rambukwella genes. That is probably why you too jumped from a balcony while Down Under, fractured your foot and spent time in an Australian hospital. Lest you forget, Keheliya, we, the taxpayers, paid that bill for you.

It is not that you like paying your bills anyway. Not so long ago, you were in the headlines as one of those ministers who had millions owing to the Electricity Board. It took all that publicity to compel you to settle at least part of that bill. So, being stubborn despite the consequences is not new to you.

That is why we are not at all surprised at your response to people dying of reactions to drugs of poor quality. When the issue was debated in Parliament last week your reply was that ‘not all the people who go to hospital come out alive, some die. That is why there are undertakers located near hospitals’.

Those words show just how much you empathise with the plight of the public. Is it an appropriate response to a family who has lost a loved one recently due to a low-quality drug? If some who go to our hospitals are expected to die, why do politicians fly to Singapore when they catch a cold?

Your response has generated so much feeling among the public. If locating undertakers opposite hospitals is about being at the correct location, people ask whether having a large playground with plenty of grass in it located right in front of the Parliament is also about being at the right location.

The ‘aragalaya’ erupted when people died in petrol and gas queues. With each death due to low quality drugs imported under your watch, similar events can happen. Think not of the motto of your school- Be Thou Forever- but that of your rival school- Learn or Depart. It is time to go, Keheliya.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- The no confidence motion against you has been handed over, we are told. Pardon me, but I feel the ‘telephone’ chaps are quite cleverly trying to kill two birds with one stone by doing this. If they are successful, not only can they tell the country they got rid of you, they can get rid of Rajitha too!