The Government Radiological Technologists’ Association (GRTA) warned they would stage a token strike on 21 January in islandwide hospitals against the alleged inaction of the Health Ministry against the Maligawatta National Institute for Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation (NINDT) Deputy Director, whom they accused of acts of indiscipline and misconduct. 

GRTA President, Chanaka Dharmawickrama, in a letter to the Ministry Secretary, Dr. Anil Jasinghe yesterday (13), accused the Ministry of safeguarding the NINDT Deputy Director, noting that it was like encouraging unethical behaviour that undermines the public service. He urged Dr. Jasinghe to take into account the misdoings and remove the said Deputy Director from the NINDT and initiate a probe into the allegations that have been leveled against him. He accused the Deputy Director of allowing an unqualified person to perform radiation examinations on in-ward patients in a Government Hospital, allowing an unauthorised person to use Government-owned equipment and surgical supplies, and permitting such persons to use advanced radiation equipment in the Hospital. He further urged Dr. Jasinghe to take urgent steps to preserve written evidence related to these misconducts, issue instructions to safeguard the closed circuit television camera footage of those malpractices and eliminate the influence exerted on people who witness incidents. He warned that the trade union action would be strengthened if the Ministry fails to take necessary action. 

However, attempts made to contact Dr. Jasinghe proved futile.

The Deputy Director of the NINDT, Dr. Charles Nugawela, speaking to The Daily Morning on an earlier occasion, said that the fault was not with the radiological technologists but with the Union as it was worried that the particular laboratory service provided to the Hospital would be privatised. He said that he had been compelled to sanction approval from the Ministry and send patients to the private hospital close to the Institute as to send the same ambulance to fetch and drop radiological technologists from their residences or boarding houses would cost more.  Clarifying further, he said that he had also been forced to accept services from the private sector as the patients who were to be X-rayed were those who were in the Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. “I have only worked with the best interest of the patients in mind – and to me, that duty comes first,” Dr. Nugawela added.