By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –SEPTEMBER 1, 2021
Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole
I am treated for diabetes and high blood pressure by a Jaffna Teaching Hospital physician. The care I get from him is as good as what I had in the US. The physician administrators have over the past few years brought the Jaffna Teaching Hospital to high standard, clean and with many physicians looking at a patient.
I was therefore surprised to hear that PCR Tests 72 hours before a flight has been approved only from Asiri, Nawaloka, Durdans, Lanka Hospital, and some relatively unknown and new business houses. Strangely Military Hospitals are approved for military personnel but not government hospitals for us. Those like me from outside Colombo need to travel early, spend time in Colombo and get our tests done. Getting ourselves dropped off after getting a PCR certificate from a government hospital is not an option. The additional cost (keeping the van in Colombo, ordered food through Uber-Eats, and hotel because with Covid we cannot invite ourselves into homes), can add several tens of thousands of rupees to our travel cost. This country works for Colombo folk only.
Although a home-kit for testing is Rs. 180 (German make), these private hospitals charged Rs. 8,500 but have now reduced it to Rs. 6,500. Who gave them this monopoly? When a passenger is found to have Covid and isolated, the room charges alone are more than the Rs. 12,500 a day my daughter paid at Jetwing for isolation.
I understand a negative PCR Result from Jaffna was rejected by an airline. Are our government doctors to be trusted less that businessmen and soldiers?
I was to travel on 31 July 2021 to the US. My son had found my wife and me a really good deal at $950 to San Francisco and back. We made an appointment at Durdans. We chose Durdans because when my children went to the US over a month ago, it was efficiently done. They had an 8.00 am drive-through appointment, tested while in my vehicle, and were out by 8.10. The results came by email and they flew out the next day.
As for our tests, I received an SMS asking me to confirm my details. It had a mistake in my email address but there was no method of reply. No one answered the main Durdans telephone numbers for me to tell anyone. No one replied my email correction.
Our appointments were at 8.30 and 8.35 am on 30.08.2021. They had overbooked. At 9.00 when I dared to go up and ask the official, I was told something in Sinhalese. I asked her kindly if she would tell me in English or Tamil. She got angry and stopped responding to me after that. Colombo has over 50% Tamil-speakers but there was no one in the lab who could speak English or Tamil. The hospital with a western name had no one to talk to customers who were not Sinhalese. Strangely most of those who came for the test were Tamils or Muslims.
My wife, a trained chemist, upset the Durdans technician taking samples by telling her that by touching the box with samples without gloves and then handling samples she was contaminating them.
A person who had a later appointment was called and went away. We were finally called in, tested and given a web-address to check the result “before 5 pm”. The web address did not work. I got my result on paper by going back to Durdans at 5.00 pm but my wife was asked to return at 7.00 pm. When she did, she was criticized for coming when she had failed the test. She had Corona, she was told. As she felt no symptoms, she asked for a second test. No point because the result will not change, she was told. She was threatened with isolation and offered a bed for Rs. 17,500. She quickly walked out before someone held her up.
Report from Durdans
My wife was devastated. Our trip was ruined. I could not travel alone fearing she might die in my absence. We went to Nawaloka at 9.20 pm, a Hospital with an indigenous name but people who could speak kindly to non-Sinhalese. The test was repeated. But we had to wait till the 31st for the result.
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