An island-wide protest by Sri Lankan doctors Friday demanded closing a private medical college, crippled Sri Lanka’s health services, blocked roads and threatened the country’s investment climate.
Doctors trained at the state-run medical colleges have long been demanding closing the privately owned South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine.
Barred from protesting against it when it opened in 2008 under the authoritarian government of that time, doctors and medical students have taken advantage of their new freedom to protest for its closing.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s center-right United National Party, which has promised to revive the economy with major foreign direct investments, said on Friday that it proposes to take over the private hospital and to allow its students to train at state hospitals, but did not say if they would stop it from admitting new students.
