SAITM Medical Students’ Parents Association Chairman Gemunu Wijeratne yesterday said that it was a crime for the government to maintain Dr. Neville Fernando Hospital at a huge cost to the economy that has no patients and clinical training for medical students.
Addressing a media briefing held in Colombo yesterday, he said it was financial fraud to run the hospital at a government’s expenses although there are plans to sell it off. The Health Minister and its Secretary must be held responsible for the fraud, he said.
“Government doctors do not work at the hospital. A few students who passed the final exam of the SAITM work here to treat patients. They are paid by the government,” he said.
“If the President has appointed a Presidential Commission on the SAITM issue as we suggested, we could have been caught as culprits behind the issue. President Maithripala Sirisena made a correct decision with a directions that only the qualified students of the SAITM should be enrolled to the KDU,” he said. SAITM crisis erupted again as there was a new proposal to take all SAITM students to the KDU.
“There is a proposal to put the word ”SAITM” within brackets in the degree certificate after SAITM students qualified with MBBS at the KDU.