Doctor harrased mother - Red Cross official

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 April 1998, 23:59 GMT]
Sivanthan Kishore, Secretary of the Vavuniya branch of the Red Cross Society, has informed the Sri Lankan medical authorities of an incident where a Sinhalese doctor at Anuradhapura hospital had accused a Tamil woman named Arulrani (31) of working for the Liberation Tigers. Arulrani had brought her year old child for treatment at the hospital.

Arulrani is from Pandivirichchan, a village in Vavuniya which is in territory under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

Mr. Kishore stated in his complaint stated that, despite other people protesting the woman's innocence, the doctor had insisted that Arulrani was working for the LTTE and threatened to hand her over to the police.

Even as the mother was preparing to return to Vavuniya by ambulance, after the child received treatment, the doctor had refused to discharge the patient till the following morning.

This had led to unnecessary expenses having to be incurred by Arulrani, the complaint stated.

This case follows another incident of bureaucratic apathy and indifference last month, where a woman who had come for treatment for her infant daughter to the Anuradhapura Hospital from the LTTE controlled area in Vavuniya, was not granted permission to stay overnight in Anuradhapura nor take the body of her infant daughter (who died at the hospital) back to Vavuniya because she did not possess the valid documents required to obtain a travel pass from Vavuniya.