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Angered UK donors withdraw pledges to children`s hospital
Saturday, 17 September 2005 - 4:05 AM SL Time
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Bureaucratic red tape and the indifferent attitude displayed by officials have been blamed for delay in constructing the proposed fully equipped children`s hospital in Kalutara.
Dr. (Mrs.) Tush Wickramanayaka, Chief Executive of the Children`s Hospital Tsunami Appeal Fund (CHTAF) yesterday blamed `bureaucratic red tape` for the delay in constructing the hospital estimated to cost Rs 900 million.
She said the delays caused by official indifference had resulted in the donors in the United Kingdom withdrawing their pledges amounting to 827,000 sterling. Dr Wickramanayaka also lambasted some of the NGO`s calling them corrupt. She said they had collected huge sums of money claiming that the funds would be utilised for the construction of houses for the tsunami displaced and their welfare but today they had failed to account for the money and have a thousand and one excuses for not doing the work. The `Tsunami` has now become a `big money making operation` she added.
`Their actions have made it difficult for genuine charities to raise funds for a worthy cause and we get tarred with the same brush,` said Gary Cutter, Trustee of the Fund.
Thirty-eight-year old Dr Wickramanayaka said `We should have commenced work on phase one of the 300-bed hospital in June and completed it before the first anniversary of the Tsunami.
However, she said `Now the project will be entirely handled by the private sector and I am optimistic that it will get underway in six to eight weeks time.` Asked whether they were happy with the progress so far she said she would like things to move faster.
What is unique is that, once completed this hospital will be the only one of its kind built in a tsunami stricken country explained Dr Wickramanayaka. She added that round 20,000 children in the country perished due to the tidal wave and in some villages there are hardly any children left after the Tsunami.
She appealed to the public and the business sector to donate whatever possible to make this worthy cause a success and added that they could contribute not only in cash, but also in kind with material needed for construction, medical equipment bricks and cement.
The hospital will be built on a three acre block of land belonging to the Kalutara Hospital in Nagoda and an MoU was signed between the Health Ministry and the CHTAF for the purpose and once the project is completed the hospital will be handed over top the government.
The required amount for the completion of the phase one of the project will be around 150,000 to 200,000 sterling pounds and the hospital with medical, surgical and also counselling services will serve to a wider community without any religious, ethnic class barriers and political interference she said.Rehabilitation of children who were victims of the Tsunami and the civil war will also be carried out she said.
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malship
Joined: Aug 2005
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16 Sep 2005 21:17:33 GMT Report for Abuse
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Can anyone please tell me as to where Kalutara is.
Is it one of the towns in the Vanni, the east or north under LTTE control.
Please help me out, with the bickering on the P Tom's, the LTTE, another snub to them from the international community. |
anizam
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16 Sep 2005 21:29:07 GMT Report for Abuse
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'Can anyone please tell me as to where Kalutara is.'
Are you seriously asking that question?????????? :) |
nada
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16 Sep 2005 21:32:52 GMT Report for Abuse
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| Dr.Tush, who cares for the white bu....s money. Ask them to fly a kite. We can stand on our own feet. We know how to look after ourselves and tell them to B..off. We have all the resources to look after not 20000 but even 200,000 children. Our new government will make this country to stand on its own feet. We are a proud people and a proud nation and we cannot be bought over by money. Take all your bloody money and get lost for ever. For the first time we are going to learn from our neighbor how he manages well with very minimum resources. He will tell us what to do and how to do. We have opened our eyes for the first time. |
AnuD
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16 Sep 2005 21:37:25 GMT Report for Abuse
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Nada, If this happened in the North or East this would be sinhala racism.
Now this happened in the west, you have a different tune.
What money you took from Australian MP. that was money from white.....
That is racism. |
malship
Joined: Aug 2005
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16 Sep 2005 21:49:50 GMT Report for Abuse
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AnuD: Stop sitting on your head, start thinking with your back.
The moral of the story is that it is the poor, the one's who cannot afford private hospitals, treatment in overseas medical facilities, who are losing out. Ir-respective of whether they were born Burgher, Muslim, Sinhalese or Tamil
Anyway who cares about these parasites, they deserve what they get.
They do not belong in this world, the bloody beggars. |
nirupam
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16 Sep 2005 21:57:10 GMT Report for Abuse
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AnuD,
This beaurocratic red tape and indifferent attitude hold development work all over the country. For example, to get a Police Report in Jaffna, you make an application, three policemen visit your home. Each of them must be bribed as a precondition for the Report to be processed. The applicant make numerous visits to the Police Station (PS)and often turned back with the excuse that those who speak Tamil are not the PS at that moment.
The report goes to KKS police Station. The local policeman comes saying that KKS policeman also had to be paid. This is the 2nd round of bribe.
The last journey leg of the report is colombo bound. You go to the head office. There are 2 policemen claiming their boss also has to be bribed. So all 3 are paid bribes. Aftwer 3 months your name be on the board indicating the Police Report is ready for you to collect. Some people with no knowledge of Sinhalese is robbed again.
That's why LTTE insists on Joint Mechanism to help the tsunamy affected people. This way LTTE will cut down bureaucracy and get to act directly. Many projects are completed in days whereas in Govt. offices they take months and years. |
malship
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16 Sep 2005 22:11:53 GMT Report for Abuse
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Nirupam: Can you please inform the forum as to whether the Jaffna & KKS Police stations are not under LTTE control.
If so, the LTTE must be fuming, that they cannot lay their hands on these bribes.
You say that when the police decides to visit a home, only 3 of them come.
Myyyy, aren't they brave, earlier to get out of the station to answer a call of nature, they needed a whole battalion with armored cars, South African Buffalo's etc & thousands of civilians to give them protection from the front,back & the 2 sides..
Time fly so fast, things change so past, me still a pea brain. No wonder ?.
Edited By - malship - 16 Sep 2005 22:22:07 GMT |
AnuD
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16 Sep 2005 22:18:03 GMT Report for Abuse
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Nirupam:
your talking is highly biased, because you are LTTE. You guys have proven that you don't talk the truth. It is just talking for the face value.
You do not show evidence to prove that police is taking bribes and on the other hand, LTTE do things again in few days.
Who knows, you people say and contradict it, we don't see anything.
If you are all that good, why don't you use money collected for weapons and other things to develop the
NOrth.
See Malship in contradicting what Nirupam is saying.
Edited By - AnuD - 16 Sep 2005 22:19:24 GMT |
sk63
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16 Sep 2005 22:31:48 GMT Report for Abuse
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This shows how ignorant and inept the bunch of bafoons in the ill-fated PA/JVP govt. Why is it so hard to get over the red tape and get the ball rolling so that people can benefit from the hospital. If the govt. bafoons pushed this forward they would have had a chance to rob at least part of the money too! They can rob 90% and the remaining 10% will make at least 10% of the hospital.
I would like to draw the attention of my friends from the tamil community to this story. Please note that the govt. is not giving the step motherly treatment to tamils in the north east. they are giving the same treatment to kalutara folks too.
This must be the concept of treating all citizens equally under the socialist doctrine. So treat them all badly, give them all an equally bad deal. here we are socialism in the Sri lankan way! |
piranha
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16 Sep 2005 22:36:23 GMT Report for Abuse
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Who is responsible for this fiasco? Corruption and inefficiency are the trademarks of the Sri lankan politicians and bureaucracy. How can you expect these bungling bubbleheads to solve the ethnic problem when they couldn't even handle a gift from a foreign country.
I think we Tamils should go our own way leaving these morons behind. |
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