Dec 03, Colombo: Sri Lanka's powerful white collar trade union, Government Medical Officers' Association has decided to abstain from participating any official event to which Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva also attends.

The trade union in a statement today said that it has to resort to this measure since the Health Minister continues to behave in an unfriendly and confrontational manner towards its members.

The bone of the contention was known to be an incident occurred in the Eye Hospital, Colombo. The Ministry officials said to have abruptly taken away the doctors’ attendance registry of the Eye Hospital for an investigation recently. The trade union said that the action was against the accepted procedure of investigations. The statement said that the further action on this regard will be decided at the next executive committee meeting.

Sri Lanka’s government medical doctors are widely criticized for performing private practice during office hours whilst taking the pay and all other benefits out of public money. Majority of the doctors have graduated from public universities where they had received free education. However, the Health Ministry has not been able to curb these activities due to the powerful trade union pressure on the part of the doctors.

Government Medical Officers’ Association said to have over 14,000 members at present.