Sri Lanka College Of Obstetricians And Gynecologists: Covering The Fallopian Tubes With A Thousand Rupee Note

By Grusha Andrews –JUNE 1, 2019

First thing first.

I have no intention of white washing the infamous Dr Shafi Siyabdeen who has allegedly caused unconsented infertility in 4000 mothers. Whatever the truth of that allegation may be, it is obvious that Dr Shafi was involved in a money laundering exercise which would put a final nail on his professional life for sure.

Dr Shafi Siyabdeen

However, alternatively, in this weird country it won’t be a huge surprise if Dr Shafi was resurrected from the death of his profession and was made Governor of the Eastern Province tomorrow, or something. 

But that is not the real issue here. 

It is now ten days since a guy with a dead political life ignited the whole Sri Lankan society with Islamophobia targeting an allegation surrounding Dr Shafi. As I suggested previously we must not even mention the name of that putrid professor for Rajarata University who is trying to give oxygen to his dying political potential by igniting racism. By his own admission he and others have known of this atrocity for quite the while and waited for the opportune moment for themselves to “reveal“ it. 

Gynecologist Cats That Sh*t On The Infertility Rock

It is questionable how an entire fraternity of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are maintaining an official silence (excluding one or two sporadic personal statements on Facebook by expatriate, retired Gynecologists) regarding this professional crisis that is eroding the trust of the public in the entire medical profession. The magnitude of this destruction is of a national scale. They are behaving pretty much like the cat that defecated on a rock and is unable to cover it up with sand. 

Sri Lanka College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (SLCOG) is the apex professional body for its specialty. It is also the only official body that lays down clinical guidelines, norms, guidelines for patient safety, facilitate post graduate education and is committed to maintaining the good name and the highest professional standards of the discipline. It is the foremost and the un-challengeable organization that stands for the discipline of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Sri Lanka.  

When a super serious allegation is made against Dr Shafi that he made 400 mothers infertile without consent whilst under the supervision of a Consultant Gynecologist leading to a national uproar and calamity, the SLCOG is maintaining meek silence as if gone deaf and dumb. What they should have done is to immediately offer their technical expertise to the Ministry of Health without even waiting for a request. They should have immediately engaged with the post Easter Sunday Sri Lankan society still in uncertainty and shock to alleviate their hysterical reaction to this allegation. They should have issued a professional statement to control the escalation. 

Instead what happened? 

What happened was that a member of the council of SLCOG called Professor Hemantha Dodampahala issued a statement that women can be made infertile by pressing the Fallopian tubes with an instrument during the Caesarian Section. Theoretically it is plausible that if any live tissue, blood vessel or tube, when compressed with a surgical instrument for an hour or two will obviously lose its vitality and die. You don’t need a professor to spread that two bit theory. A child knows that. 

By this logic, if a patient undergoing a surgery today in their abdominal cavity, perineal cavity of any other organ dies tomorrow, the relatives can complain that this was due to the compressing of an organ by the surgeon. From tomorrow it would be impossible for a patient to die without the doctor being implicated with murder. Tomorrow if a Muslim patient dies after being treated by a Sinhala doctor, his Muslim relatives can make the same allegation. 

What Dodampahala is raping is the very nobility of the medical profession. Its humanity and vulnerability.  From tomorrow it might be impossible for a patient to die. Dodampahala has taught the public the theory of keeping the knife to the throat of the doctors. 

Does The Sri Lanka College of Obstetricians And Gynecologist Have Morals? 

Dodampahala and all other Gynecologists who came of Hiru and Derana TV wagging surgical instruments and instilling mass hysteria and fear are doing so irresponsibly, destroying the trust placed on the medical profession by the public. Do these Gynecologists actually have a moral background to do these things? If you search a little deep on the internet you will find the black marks and the red spots of their histories. You will find out what their political orientations are. 

The President of the SLCOG has a huge responsibility to become the professional mediator between the profession and the public. Because Dr Shafi worked under the supervision of a member of the SLCOG. The President of the SLCOG should have taken immediate measures to carry out a confidential internal fact finding about the conduct of the Consultant connected to this situation. He should have come out to the public and shared the needful facts and give the public the confidence that this problem is being tackled at the professional level. He should have been the builder of confidence in the medical profession when it is crumbling in all direction. It was the moral prerogative of the President of the SLCOG. 

Read More