Sri Lankan doctors are opposing the government’s bid to sign an Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India on the grounds that in the absence of a sound regulatory mechanism in Lanka, the ETCA will lead to a massive influx of Indian doctors, threatening the prospects of local medical professionals.

“There is an urgent necessity to amend the Sri Lanka Medical Ordinance to define a specialist and set the qualifications and the procedure to test the qualifications,” said Dr Nalinda Herath, an office bearer of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), which is in the vanguard of the on-going agitation against the ETCA.

“In the Medical Ordinance there is no definition of a specialist specifying qualifications and the procedures for the assessment of qualifications. While the state medical sector has defined a specialist, with specified qualifications and procedures for assessment, there is no such system in private medical sector. And it is the private hospitals which recruit foreign doctors,” Herath has said the New Indian Express.

“While India does not allow foreign doctors to practice without a certification of the Medical Council of India, Lanka allows Indian doctors to practice without a similar professional certification from the Sri Lanka Medical Council,” Dr Herath added.

(NIE)
-Agencies