President to appoint expert committee

“I will appoint a committee of experts to consult all parties and advise the government on the SAITM issue,” President Maithripala Sirisena tweeted yesterday afternoon, referring to the meeting he had with the GMOA and the GDSA earlier in the day. Ministry to direct SAITM to suspend the admission of medical students until the necessary compliance certification is obtained from the SLMC.

Sources close to the Deans, meanwhile told the the SundayTimes that Minister Kiriella has agreed to meet student representatives, the President and the Secretary of each state Medical Faculty tomorrow (Monday), while agreeing on the need to tighten up regulations with regard to medical education.

Dealing with the ‘implications’ of the Court of Appeal order ( CA/ WRIT/ 187/ 2016) on the standards of medical education as well as in the provision of safe healthcare services in the country, the Deans have laid down the following suggestions. Graduates from all private medical schools in Sri Lanka should be required to pass a licensing examination (similar to the examination that foreign medical graduates must pass), before they are awarded provisional registration by the SLMC. This will require an amendment of the Medical Ordinance. Regulations prescribing minimum standards for medical education in all higher education institutes that are empowered to award medical degrees in Sri Lanka must be gazetted by the Minister of Health and approved by Parliament as soon as possible. The legislation governing professional bodies such as the SLMC, the Sri Lanka Nursing Council and the Ceylon Medical College Council should be amended in order to empower such professional bodies to grant compliance certification to degree-awarding institutes. Degree-awarding institutes should not be empowered to award medical and other health professional degrees by the Ministry of Higher Education, unless such an institute has obtained compliance certification from the relevant professional body. Compliance certification should be subject to renewal at regular periods, e.g. every 5–10 years. SAITM should be compelled by the Ministry of Higher Education to suspend admission of medical students until it obtains the necessary compliance certification from the SLMC. · The other measures recommended by us in our Joint Statement issued in July 2016 could form the basis for resolving the broader concerns within the medical profession with regard to the functioning of SAITM as a higher education institute and with regard to current students and graduates. Medical graduates from state universities, who have been provided with free education, should be compelled to serve the Sri Lankan state health system for some minimum period of time, whereas graduates from the private medical schools need not be compelled to do the same. The eight Deans are Prof. Jennifer Perera of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo; Prof. Vajira Weerasinghe of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya; Prof. Sarath Lekamwasan of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna; Dr. S. Raviraj of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna; Prof. Nilanthi de Silva of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya; Prof. Surangi Yasawardena of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura; Dr. A. Arulpragasam of the Faculty of