Letters to the Editor
View(s):Remembering my teacher Dr. Noel Bartholomeusz
Last week’s article in the Sunday Times on the event marking the golden jubilee of the College of Surgeons, at College House, the once gracious residence of Dr Noel Bartholomeusz and his wife Nora, brought back memories of that great surgeon.
My first vague recollection of him are childhood ones, as my father was Visiting Physician, Badulla while Dr. Noel was Visiting Surgeon. He had by this time established a reputation as a skilled surgeon. He was in the first post-war batch of doctors to be sent to the UK for their post-graduate qualifications. This was in 1945. They landed there in the coldest winter on record. The water pipes burst due to frozen water in them. Rationing was still the order of the day. On his return, he together with Dr. P.R. Anthonis and Dr. D. F. de. S. Gunewardene were appointed as Consultant Surgeons in the General Hospital, Colombo.
As a medical student I was fortunate to be assigned to him for my first surgical appointment.
He would walk in, wearing his signature white tussore suit with an orchid in his buttonhole.
These orchids were tended to by him in their garden every morning before he came to work. Always soft spoken, he would maintain discipline in his ward without ever raising his voice. He showed an equal degree of concern for all his patients irrespective of their social status.
The high point of my surgical appointment was assisting him in the theatre, whilst he performed a hemi-mandibulectomy and block dissection of cervical lymph nodes (removal of half the jaw and the lymph nodes draining that area).
He had an artist’s tapering fingers and artist he indubitably was. His scalpel cleaved through the tissues, deftly and precisely. There was minimal blood loss. Any ‘bleeder’ was ligatured immediately. The memory of this surgery is still fresh in my mind 65 years on.
It is only in the last three decades or so that sub-specialities were recognized in surgery. In the 50’s and 60’s, apart from the brain, heart, lungs, uterus and adnexa, any organ was grist to the surgeons mill. Dr. Bartholomeusz or “Bartho” as he was called by colleagues and students would operate with the same degree of competency on any part of the body.
His wife Nora, an ex-nurse, was his ideal companion. Gracious and soft spoken, she too showed concern for the lesser privileged. In the latter part of her life she was bedridden for many years. Before she died, their assets were distributed to many charitable organizations and hospitals. I was fortunate enough to obtain funds from her to help establish a tissue typing laboratory in the Renal Unit of the General Hospital Kandy. The only requirement was, that the name of the donors Noel and Nora Bartholomeusz was clearly inscribed, whatever the project was. I digress…..
Although I had visited the Bartholomeuszs with my parents, I rarely came into contact with them after marriage as we were stationed in Kandy. In 1968 he performed a minor surgery on me. The last time I met him was when he was in hospital in the UK in 1970 for his first session of dialysis. Subsequently, this was to become a regular feature until his death. They had a dialysis machine at home, which was deftly handled by his wife. During this period, he continued his normal routine of surgery.
It is fitting that the memory of this great personality and great surgeon is kept alive by the College of Surgeons.
Dr. Premini Amerasinghe Via email
A cry for help from the Thalangama Wetlands
I have been growing paddy for the past 15 years, “organically” (I prefer to call it ecologically) on 1 ½ acres along the Thalangama wetlands, a gazetted Environment Protected Area (EPA). There are over 200 acres of paddy here passed down through generations, and tended to by hardworking farmers. All within these beautiful pristine wetlands that traverse the Thalangama tank and Averihena lake. More than 100 birds could be sighted here. It’s a paradise, a stone’s throw from bustling, smoky, Colombo city.
A few days ago I received a long winded letter from the Kaduwela Divisional Secretariat informing me that both of my fields will be acquired as per Sec 2 of the Land Acquisition Act of 1964 to accommodate a 4 lane elevated highway to be built over this EPA and wetlands. I have been warned that I must provide access to man, machine and beast to measure, dig, evacuate, excavate, plant steel and pour concrete over my fertile, earthworm-rich soil which I have struggled to maintain without the use of chemicals.
Hundreds of residents have been issued these notices for acquiring their homes, lands and fields. How can Sec. 2 notices be issued without an EIA? How can they be issued before the CEA has given formal approval to the RDA for the highway to traverse these wetlands? How can a highway be built over an EPA in violation of a gazette? Let me tell you how.
When residents heard that a highway was to be built over this EPA they wrote to the President of Sri Lanka with 175 signatories. This letter was never acknowledged. Like many other letters to many others – sent subsequently. The media too highlighted this impending environmental disaster many times. Desperate, they then filed a Writ Application in the Appeal Court in Feb 2021 to defend the gazette that only permitted agriculture, fishing and bird-watching upon these wetlands. What happened while this petition was being heard is simply unbelievable and atrocious. The Minister of Environment under whom lies the Central Environment Authority, stealthily in July this year, amended Gazette 1487/10 of 2007 to now also include an elevated highway under “permitted uses”!
Wetlands play multiple roles of flood control, carbon absorption and oxygen production for the diverse species and for human life. Altering the hydrologic regime in the placing of highway fills on wetlands can have significant physical and biological effects on the natural environment and the ecological processes of the affected area.
What we are seeing today is the mutilation of gazettes by law makers. Gazettes that were carefully and meticulously structured by their predecessors to protect and nurture our environment for the benefit of the generations to come are torn apart. What is worth mentioning is that this highway will not serve or have any benefit to the residents who will live under this monstrosity. They cannot enter or exit this.
What the residents really need is a bus service! There is no bus service that runs along these roads. Residents including schoolchildren, the infirm and the elderly have no way to get to Pelawatte, Akuregoda, Battaramulla, Hokandara or Malabe. They trudge on foot or 3 wheeler it. There are practical alternate routes available. Unfortunately, the options proposed by Prof Sarath Kotagama have been clinically ignored. Policy makers, from their actions, seem hell-bent on proceeding with this environmental disaster.
In India, Thailand and other S.E Asian countries elevated highways are also routed over existing roadways preventing the demolition of residential housing and avoiding other routes that damage or destroy the environment.
Jomo Uduman Pothuarawa
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