SAITM will prevail – SB

By Chathuri Dissanayake

The Government yesterday came out strongly in defence of the controversial private medical faculty South Asia Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM). Former Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake who was responsible for granting SAITM degree-awarding status during the Rajapaksa regime came to the assistance of succeeding  Higher Education Minister Lakshman Kiriella to give his version of the SAITM saga, claiming that members of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) were carrying out a vendetta against the school for personal reasons. 

Fielding questions from journalists, Minister Dissanayake implied that the Rajapaksa Government used undue pressure on the SLMC to accredit the Medical Faculty of the Defence Ministry-run Kotelawala Defence University. He also alleged that SLMC Registrar Terrence De Silva is opposing the accreditation of SAITM due to personal reasons. Dissanayake claimed that, as the subject minister, he was opposed to the establishment of the Kotelawala University, but the regime was able to form the university through an Act of Parliament independent of the Ministry of Higher Education and the University Grants Commission. 

“The SLMC backed off after something happened to their Registrar in Ratmalana. After that, they even changed the Act which governs the SLMC to accommodate the Kotelawala Medical Faculty. The GMOA was also brought to its knees and Gotabaya was able to get the new Act passed in Parliament with no trouble,” Dissanayake claimed. 

Both Kiriella and Dissanayake claimed that they are now duty bound to abide by the court order but did not specify what measures would be taken to maintain quality of the health service or the education given by private medical colleges. 

Dissanayake also admitted that there are severe shortcomings in the state medical faculties which the SLMC has ignored, calling out on the protesting professionals to pay attention to the lack of facilities and teaching staff present in the state-run colleges. 

However, when asked if the establishment of private medical colleges could lead to a bleeding out of the remaining academic staff for better benefits, the Minister dismissed any such possibility, bringing in examples of state-run services such as the healthcare system, transport service and Lakehouse, which he deemed to be “successfully competing with the private sector.”