{"id":95805,"date":"2019-11-29T18:11:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T01:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95805"},"modified":"2019-11-29T18:11:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T01:11:39","slug":"action-and-inaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/29\/action-and-inaction\/","title":{"rendered":"Action and inaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laksiri Warnakula<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The election is over and the country\u2019s\nhelm is now in the hands of a new skipper. Therefore isn\u2019t it time to forget\nthe polling booths and look beyond them to see what else could be happening in\nthis \u2018Land like no other\u2019? By the way anyone looking at the above title might\nthink that I got it wrong: Shouldn\u2019t it be \u2018Action and reaction\u2019? No. Believe\nme. It\u2019s no mistake!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ours is a nation, where action and\ninaction are engaged in a race and for almost seventy years on now, it has\nalways been a case of later being placed ahead with the former lagging behind,\npanting, puffing and it has never been seen to be in possession of enough\nstamina and strength to catch up. To make matters worse, the lead seems to be\nincreasing and not one bit decreasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now here is just one case in point,\nwhich no doubt is amongst probably many such others that speaks of our\ninaction. My daily routine includes spending sometime on Facebook, which in\nfact has now become more ritual than routine. And about a week before (22-11-19)\na post on it caught my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was about a pathetic state of\naffairs (this may have been fixed by now) at our National Hospital in relation\nto the dialysis units that became nonoperational due to the non-availability of\nnecessary air conditioning equipment. The new equipment was there, waiting for\ninstallation. The post carried some photos too and the writer, who himself is a\ndialysis patient planned to take serious action to bring this situation to the\nattention and notice of all concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unbelievable. A hospital of such\nimportance and immensity must be having a fairly long list of administrators\nranging from directors, their deputies down to the superintendents. Then there\nare medical professionals of specialist and professorial standing all the way\ndown to the interns. Then there is the nursing staff and other medical\nlaboratory technicians, so on and so forth. Finally we have the minister of\nhealth looking down from above, sitting in his luxurious ministerial abode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still those a\/c equipment lay neglected\ncausing many a patient to suffer. And none seemed to care. How would one\nexplain such inaction, apathy and negligence?  And who is to take the\nresponsibility and who in authority is asking that question, anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a pity that the sincere most\nfeelings of concern, empathy and sympathy (not pretentious) towards a fellow\nhuman, who is in need of care and help is fast becoming a thing of the past.\nThere was a time when the majority of our people in the society irrespective of\nwho and what they were always helped the needy and the sick as far as they\ncould. That mentality is not there anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead a self-serving, self-centred\nand selfish psychology has taken over the society at large. Nobody big or\nsmall, or the teacher and the heeler or the vendor and the worker doesn\u2019t give\ntwo hoots about those who are under their care let alone any other member of\nthe society any more, if what\u2019s on the menu or the plate is not attractive and\nbig enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The socio-economic changes in the\nsociety that resulted following those policies of \u2018Open Market Economy\u2019 of late\nJRJ precipitated this moral avalanche. And these polcies also introduced a new\nphilosophy of living to the masses: To \u2018make money by hook or by crook’ at the\nexpense of honesty, decency and morality. And the politicians led the way by\nexample, showing the people how to cheat, lie and rob with ease and without\nhaving any scruples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then some blame the sad\ncircumstances like the one mentioned above regarding the dialysis unit in the\nNational hospital on the bureaucratic red tape and inertia that our public\nservice is deeply afflicted with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a well-known fact though that the\n\u2018Third World\u2019 and its public sector in particular is notoriously replete with\nbureaucratic inertia, with its public servants often venting out their\nworkplace grievances, even domestic at times,  on the hapless public\nand Sri Lanka is no exception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of our own government\norganisations are well over over-staffed and I am sure many of their employees\nfrom top to bottom are quite happy sitting and doing nothing, passing the buck\naround and to make their task easier there is lots of that bureaucratic red\ntape too, bound around those musty-smelling files and folders sitting on their\ntables for ages, waiting to be opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However when the sick and the ill, who\ncannot afford private medical care have no option but rely on our government\nhospitals to look after their health issues and expect to receive necessary\ntreatment as quickly and efficiently as possible, utilising the available\nresources to the maximum, become the victims of neglect and negligence, it\u2019s a\nvery sad state of affairs indeed, which in fact is both a social malady and a\ntragedy of no small dimension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No doubt we still have dedicated and\nhonest professionals and workers, who put their duty above and beyond\neverything else. Sadly this creed is now becoming a minority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sincerely hope that the new president\nwill take prompt action to put a stop to this abysmal inaction and endless\nprocrastination that has become the work ethic of the majority of the employees\nin our government institutions and organisations. Its colossally negative\nimpact on the development of the country and the improvement of the standard of\nliving of its people need no elaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laksiri Warnakula<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laksiri Warnakula The election is over and the country\u2019s helm is now in the hands of a new skipper. Therefore isn\u2019t it time to forget the polling booths and look beyond them to see what else could be happening in this \u2018Land like no other\u2019? By the way anyone looking at the above title might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-laksiri-warnakula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}