Letters sent to His Excellency the President
03-02-2017 – Sinhala
09-02-2017 – Sinhala
His Excellency Maithrieepala Sirisena,
President of the Democratic socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Presidential secretariat
Colombo-1
Your Excellency,
The crisis regarding SAITM -Malabe
This is in reference to the Appeal court case filed by an alleged undergraduate of the so called medical school situated in Malabe.
We wish to point out the two essential requirements needed to obtain registration to practice as a doctor in our country.
1. SLMC approval
Any government is duty bound to ensure the safety of patients’ lives with regard to training and practicing of medicine. To ensure this, medical councils are established in all countries. A medical school cannot exist without medical council approval, but violating this fundamental principle, SAITM institute of Malabe, Sri Lanka, calling itself a medical school has recruited students to be trained in medicine.
2. Degree Awarding status
As per universities act a degree awarding status is given to an institution by a gazette notification. There is no gazette conferring degree awarding status to the petitioner’s institute. Instead, the petitioner has produced a gazette issued by the Higher Education Ministry outlining the deficiencies which needs to be rectified in order to achieve degree awarding status and a letter issued by the Secretary of Higher Education Ministry. There is no single gazette conferring degree awarding status to this institute. The petitioner herself admits this. Therefore, the Malabe institute does not have degree awarding status up to now.
If these facts are correctly & clearly presented in courts, lack of the two above fundamental requirements to practice as doctor will make her appeal a futile exercise. However, if both Higher Education and Health Ministers along with the Attorney General heeds her request, she will be able to become a “doctor” despite “passing out” from an institution without medical council recognition. This is in violation of basic fundamental principles as pointed out by the deans of all medical faculties who constitute the authority in medical education.
We wish to draw your attention to the “dark period” our university system had to face in the not too distant past. In this context the present unrest due to the SAITM issue should be of grave concern.
We appeal to your excellency , as a leader who always displayed the correct stance in this issue, to take necessary steps to save the university students and their parents from this unfortunate situation and safeguard the lives of our patients.
Further, it will greatly benefit if the two hon. Minsters and the Attorney General are advised to present the above facts clearly and correctly to courts .
We also request you to give us an opportunity to discuss this issue at your earliest
Press Releases
Press Conferences
01-05-2016 – GMOA Public Leaflet 1 – Sinhala Tamil
GMOA banner – Download
SAITM Related Documents
- 5 Member Panel Ministry of Health Report – Report
- Medical Faculty Deans Report 1 – July 2016 – Download
- SLMC report – Download
- UNIVERSITIES ACT – PART IV – UNIVERSITIES, CAMPUSES AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGES – CLAUSE 27
- EXTRAORDINARY GAZETTE 22-08-2013 -THE UNIVERSITIES ACT . NO 16 OF 1978 – RULES UNDER SECTION 137 (CLAUSE 31 & SCHEDULE II 9A CLAUSE 5) – Download
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- MEDICAL ORDINANCE OF SRI LANKA
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- 31-01-2017 – Judgment of Court of Appeal – SAITM Issue – Download
- 07-02-2017 – Letter to Minister of Health – SAITM Issue – Download
- 13-02-2017 – Letter to Minister of Higher Education – Download
- 02-10-2016 – Parliamentary Debate – Hansard – Download
- Medical Faculty Deans Report 2 – February 2017 – Download
