The medical trade union collective representing a range of health sector professionals, including supplementary to medicine and paramedical services who were engaged in a strike for days, yesterday (14) grew a heart and decided to call off their protest following meeting between authorities and them, on condition that they will get written assurances from the Government of a continued dialogue regarding their demands. The strike caused much grief for those who flock to state medical institutions seeking relief.  

Seventy two health trade unions decided to continue the strike yesterday, a day after health services and all related trades were gazetted as essential services by the Government. However, the decision by the unions is pending a written promise by the Health Minister that he would arrange a follow-on meeting regarding the groups owed, will be one that will bring relief for thousands of patients islandwide.

The strike, like many before, affected those who are struggling to get by and have no means to seek treatment or medicine from the private sector. The continued use of trade union action while Sri Lanka is on its knees is heartless, considering those who seek treatment have no other option but to fall on the mercy of the powerful unions. With Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, which followed the Covid-19 pandemic, a sizable portion of Sri Lanka’s populace have now been pushed into poverty. Millions of Sri Lankans, including urban poor and the rural communities are dependent on the smooth functioning of the once celebrated public health system, Sri Lanka was known for. However, in the recent past, the poor, and disadvantaged communities have been hammered with one crisis after the other, pushing them closer to an abyss. The impact of the health sector trade union action is felt mostly in Sri Lanka’s ageing population segment, which is a growing demography. The island's elderly, who were disproportionately affected by the economic crisis, and now find themselves at the mercy of medical staff, who have decided to seek a similar pay hike, which the State offered doctors in early January.  

The State has resorted to deploying armed forces to provide the ‘manpower’ needed to staff state hospitals in an effort to sustain basic services. While this is a use of armed forces which is commonly seen overseas, the Sri Lankan State’s lack of hesitancy to deploy and consider the crisis ‘managed’, shows that they lack a sound understanding of what the military can and cannot do. The Sri Lanka armed forces, while many in numbers, and willing to help, lack the numerical advantage of medical professionals who can act as a ‘gap filler’ in such a industry wide crisis, which is resultant of the mass trade union action.

The Government’s decision to only provide an increment to doctors, ignoring other stakeholders in the public health system, is also indicative of the detached existence the political leadership and the senior public officials live, away from ground realities in Sri Lanka. It is unconscionable that policy makers and the senior public officials who advise them, would have not foreseen this combined trade union action following, doctors being given preferential treatment. Why did not the Government try to provide a wider relief package, where the stakeholders of the public health sector got some form of relief, instead of only one group being given relief? Sri Lanka is undergoing significant austerity measures due to the economic crisis. People will complain and struggle, but weather austerity as long as it is seen to be fair, and the suffering equal. But they will not stand for being unfairly treated, which is part of what the Medial Trade Union leaders are using to mobilise their members to sustain the action.    

Successive governments have over the years pitched one group trade unions against the other to manage or control crises, which mostly have been of the state’s own making. Caught between the state and its bureaucracy, ordinary Sri Lankans suffer.  It is imperative that the Government move quickly to find solutions to this crisis, which is one of their own making. How many have to suffer, or worse, die due to lack of adequate medical attention for the Government, the health trade unions and the doctors, to all grow a heart and understand the plight of those who are suffering?