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| Dr.
Kamalika Abeyaratne, the first Sri Lankan to declare in public that
she was HIV positive is no more HIV/AIDS evokes more public anger than empathy and victims are terrified to come out of the closet. But Kamalika - in an interview with The Sunday Times in 2001 - believed that an upper class background plus the fact that she was infected through a contaminated blood transfusion, and not sex, helped her to go public."I don't think I would have appeared in public saying I am HIV positive if it came from sex," she added. This is not an eulogy of a woman admired by most for fighting for the rights of other HIV/AIDS patients but more about a doctor who cared for children, doughty fighter and one driven by a desire to serve rather than gain from society. In 1995, before contracting HIV/AIDS, she crisscrossed the countryside with another eminent woman Dr. Hiranthi Wijemanne helping children in border villages and in another period, cared for villagers in new Mahaweli settlements. After 1995 her focus was helping others suffering from HIV/AIDS. Looking back how would you sum up her life, I asked Dr. Michael Abeyaratne, husband and care-provider? "Guts ... loads of guts. That helped her through the illness. She had a grim determination to go on and fight the disease." When Kamalika declared in the mid-1990s that she was HIV positive, the story made newspaper headlines and shocked people. It was the first time any Sri Lankan had the courage to say he or she was HIV positive. "What did I feel when I first learnt I was HIV positive? Shock, disbelief, fear, anger, sorrow and finally resignation," she once said, recalling those first few difficult days after she was told she had contracted the disease. On the day she contracted HIV/AIDS through a contaminated blood transfusion after being involved in a road accident that required life-saving surgery, she was on her way to a medical clinic for handicapped children. Karume (fate) was how many described her plight. But Kamalika didn't give up, meditating a lot which helped her to overcome the initial inhibition and courageously come out in public in support of all other victims. Michael and Kamalika met as medical students. She was keen on paediatrics. Her father, Prof. George Wickremasuriya, was the first Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Colombo Medical College. "She holds them while I cut," Dr. Michael said, laughingly recalling lighter moments in Anuradhapura which "was a good period in our life. She loved Anuradhapura where she was involved in malaria research”. She had a scientific mind and an inquiring one inherited from her father," said her husband as he wiped old photographs and pottered around their Colombo house preparing for a life without Ammi as he fondly called her. In the early 1980s, the gentle doctor, her husband and a group of doctors regularly held clinics in remote areas where new settlements had sprung up as the Mahaweli scheme got into stride. When the Eelam war began, Kamalika joined Dr. Wijemanne, a social worker herself, and other doctors going into border villages mainly to vaccinate children and check nutrition levels among other medical needs. At Lady Ridgeway, Kamalika got into hot water after defying orders from the JVP to stop work. When the situation worsened, she joined her husband in a hospital in Saudi Arabia where they spent four to five years as chief of their respective departments. "We were able to get our children educated from the money we made there," Dr. Michael said. When Kamalika contracted HIV/AIDS nine years ago and by the time she died last week, the cost of drugs had fallen sharply to Rs. 4,000 a month compared to some Rs. 1.5 million a year in 1995. Her biggest achievement was securing free drugs for patients. An inquiry commission that probed the blood transfusion issue recommended that the state pay for her drugs (for negligence). The Health Ministry said they had no money so President Chandrika Kumaratunga stepped in and authorised payments from the President's Fund. Kamalika started the AIDS coalition to focus on the plight of other victims and worked with many other support groups. When her campaign succeeded and the World Bank agreed to release funds for treatment, she was not on the list of the first 25 patients. "She was very bitter," recalls Dr. Michael, "and we included this point in her last public speech at the December 1 World HIV/AIDs Day commemoration in Colombo”. Kamalika was too weak to attend the event. Her speech was read out by her husband. Disturbed by the allocation, Peter Harrold, the World Bank country director, increased the programme to cover more than 100 patients, adding Kamalika to the list. The good news came a day before Kamalika died. |
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