![Gossip Lanka News [English]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYm2aFFq-bIW1nWX-RrqnPFoIsVos6_VCVz8BpLt0QJi55GNXHXC2fugeRvL0qUStEuCfs7Sfu6ZiSlhrkldxfGuE_wzy5gitY6rMZ2KSi8VBbGvkgXLks37RwZV-4-HKbWiNLRxB8C_r1e4z3mpxFTMPDJPEADoG8E-bZteWFipeD5KNGbjvCfqEfKw=s300 "Gossip Lanka News [English]")
An open verdict was given at the post-mortem held over Dr. Priyangi Aluthge who was subjected to an unfortunate tragedy having visited Cosmetics Surgery Clinic at Visakha Road, Bambalapitiya with the intention of having a beautification done on her face. It was also decided to continue the interrogation by detaining the suspect Dr. Nimal Gamage in remand for a further period of 5 days.
Dr. Priyangi Aluthge who served at the Plastic Surgical Unit of Colombo Children's Hospital is the mother of a daughter of schoolgoing age and a son. Her husband is an Engineer
at the Ports Authority. They were residents of Senanayaka Mawatha, Nawala. The deceased doctor had visited the private clinic even prior to this and had undergone treatment there. She had been charged a sum of 1 lakh to get her face attended to; the skin under her eyes, giving a fresh look to her face and the full amount had been charged from her on this occasion before the surgery was performed.
Before performing the surgery of depositing the oily portion of her abdomen under the skin in the region of her eyes, an anti-biotic had been administered to the left-side of her neck at which moment she had developed a cough and had started yelling. After a few minutes she had passed away. Dr. Nimal Gamage had mentioned that an injection was given to her neck region instead of her hand because it was not possible to locate the vein on her hand properly.
The suspect-doctor admitted in the presence of the police yesterday that the injection he administered to the deceased doctor was the anti-biotic 'Sefuroxim' and that it was given to the deceased doctor at her own request. He had further said that he had injected 10 ml to the right-side of her neck and the moment when about 2 ml were injected, she had developed a cough and had then begun to get serious.
The suspect-doctor had mentioned in the statement given to the police that she had visited him to remove a wrinkled condition on both sides of her cheeks and that there were a few pores in the cheeks. For this surgery the deceased doctor had given a sum of Rs. 1 lakh and she has as an advance deposited the sum of Rs. 10000 to the suspect-doctor's bank account and the balance Rs. 90000 had been settled a short while before the surgery. When the suspect-doctor was taken into custody, that sum of money too was taken into police custody.
As this doctor has taken great effort to propagate his surgical methods across such media as the television, newspapers, internet and YouTube, for that very reason he was in great demand.
It was understood that for most of his operations he had used to levy a fee of somewhere between Rs. 1 lakh to 5 lakhs and parliamentarians, those of the affluent class, the educated as well as those of the high and diplomatic class had been patronizing him. The police have uncovered three or four flats in Colombo belonging to this millionaire suspect-doctor.
The said beauty clinic had been opened by the suspect in the year 2009. He had mentioned that he had performed 14,000 operations upto now from that date onwards. He had admitted that actors-actresses, spouses of Ministers, Secretaries of Ministers, doctors including several diplomats had been among his clients.
The suspect Nimal Gamage who entered Medical College in the year 1976 had become an MBBS doctor in the year 1981. Later, having served at Negombo Hospital in the year 1982 he had once again given of his services from 1983 to 1984. Subsequently, in the year 1984 he had gone to California and had followed further studies on Beauty Culture surgery and then returned to the island in the year 2009 after which he had opened the aforementioned surgery.
Though Nimal Gamage had secured qualifications as a common doctor, he has had no recognised qualifications in Plastic Surgery or permission in that respect either. He has not fulfilled requirements in Medical Surgery to perform operations as such.
Though he had been to California and had studied Beauty Culture methods, he had been forbidden to practise the medical profession in that country because he had engaged in anti-disciplinary activities. The police have begun an investigation on the fact that the suspect-doctor's name had appeared in various forms in certificates he had forwarded.
He had said that he had by now performed about 14,000 surgeries for beautification while in Sri Lanka alone he had done close upon 2,000 surgeries. The police remark that this 50 year old doctor too is someone who had been subjected to such a surgery and that his age is therefore not that visible.
It has been revealed from investigations that the 4 nurses who had served under him too have not completed their nursing qualifications. Two of these 4 nurses have not even sat for their GCE A/Ls, as learned from inquiries carried out. The police say that they are of the ages of 18, 19 and 23. These nurses have been recruited for the Bambalapitiya Medical Centre from a private nurse training institute. In the same way, these nurses were summoned yesterday by the Judicial Medical Officer and when certain medications were shown to them, they were not even aware of even the names of the medicines, it was revealed.
The Association of Plastic Surgery of Sri Lanka yesterday conducted a special news conference in this connection and what the President of the Association, Dr. Duleep Perera said on that occasion was that Dr.Nimal Gamage was not a surgeon but only an MBBS graduate doctor and that this doctor has no Degree from this country or the USA and neither any training -- that he was only a private doctor concerning internal medical science and heart ailments.
This doctor who engages in the medical profession for a period of about 20 years, at the time he was in USA was a person who was forbidden in that country too for committing the offence of sexual abuse and for securing insurance covers in a fraudulent manner as pointed out by Dr. Duleep Perera. It was emphasised that the beauty culture institute concerned is not at all a suitable environment to carry on surgery and that it has no facilities either. Though an informative letter was forwarded to the then Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. T.R.C. Ruberu in document form about this suspect-doctor in the year 2011 by the Plastic Surgeons Association he had led astray high officials of the Ministry of Health and had been performing beauty culture surgery from the year 2009, thus misleading the public, Dr. Perera added.
In the end, he said that the doctor of Children's Hospital who had gone to this suspect-doctor to have a surgery performed on her had passed away due to an injection which went wrong and that if the Ministerial officials had taken timely action against him when this Association had informed them, this tragedy would not have occured. Dr. Duleep mentioned that it was revealed that the suspect-doctor had given an injection to the deceased doctor by mistake and that there had been no anaesthesist for such a surgery, an ICU or suitable surgical instruments in that beauty clinic.
The Secretary of the Plastic Surgeon's Association Dr. Romesh Gunasekera, Consultant Surgeon Dr. Thushan Beneragama and Consultant Dr. Narendra Wijemanna make an appeal from the public not to be cheated by publicity carried on about beauty surgery or any other plastic surgery performed by private institutions. They reiterate that beauty surgery could be performed only across private hospitals in this country.
What Consultant Doctor of Children's Hospital of Borella Lady Ridgeway Hospital, Head of the Plastic Surgery Unit where the deceased doctor served said was, "the deceased doctor serves at our Plastic Surgery Unit. I met this doctor the day before this incident took place. She didn't tell me that she was going for this kind of thing. The question we have is why she visited someone like this who didn't possess the required qualifications. We can't say whether it was because she may have not liked the doctors coming to know that she was taking treatment of this sort".
Further inquiries are being conducted.