Rs. 23 m bill for Lanka Hospitals board meetings for 2 years

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

 The Board of Directors of The Lanka Hospitals Corporation PLC were paid Rs.23.37 million last two years for attending meetings.

Persons who functioned as the members of the Board of Directors of Lanka Hospitals in the year 2014 included former Secretary of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Prof. D.P.A. Fernando, Rishini Cabral, P.A. Lionel, Dr.G.W.K. Wickremasinghe, Malvinder Mohan Singh, Shivinder Mohan Singh, Dr.N.N.A.P.B. Wijesririwardena, Dr.Y.D. Nihal Jayathilaka, Dr.N.L.K. Ganganath Karunaratne, Sunil Godhwani, Vishal Bali, Daljith Singh, Sanjeev Vashishta, P. Raghunath, Karthik Rajagopal, Dr.K.H.C. Daphne, and Sandeep Puri who met for 12 Board meetings and earned a total of Rs.6.96 million.

Persons who functioned as the members of the Board of Directors of Lanka Hospitals since 8th January 2015 till date include former Secretary of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Roshinee Cabral, C.L.K.P. Jayasuriya, Dr.G.W.K. Wickremasinghe, P.A. Lionel, Prof. D.P.A. Fernando, Dr.N.N.A.P.B. Wijesririwardena, Dr.Y.D. Nihal Jayathilaka, Dr.N.L.K. Ganganath Karunaratne, Sanjeev Vashishta, Karthik Rajagopal, M.S. Perera, Dr. Harsha Hemal Gunasekara, Prof. H. Asitha de Silva, Prof. S.M. Wijeratne, S.T. Nanayakkara, Ven. Thiniyawala Palitha thero, Dr.Sarath Paranavitane, Prof. M.D.S. Lokuhetty, Dr.Roahn Lalith Wijesundara, L.U. Damien Fernando, keith Damien Fernando, Dr. Anil Abeywickrema, Ms. R.A.D. Uma Rajamantri, H.A.C. Siriwardena, Malvinder Mohan Singh, P. Raghunath, K.S. Srivastava, and Ravi Sachdev who met for 19 Board meetings to earn Rs.13.68 million.

Despite the growing competition in the healthcare sector Deputy Minister of Public Enterprise Development Eran Wickramaratne expressing the Governments plans assured the ownership of the hospital will not change hands. “The decision to sell the hospital depends on the decisions the shareholders make. In this case the majority shareholder is the Government. No discussions were held at the Ministry to sell the hospital,” confirmed Deputy Minister who rejected the allegations of conducting discussions with a Singaporean venture.