At 88, he’s still into heart and lungs
Veined and somewhat gnarled may be his hands but steady and skilled they are as Dr. H.G.S. Ranasinghe sticks electrodes to a bare-chested man to record, meticulously, the electrical currents of his heart.
Patients seek Dr. Ranasinghe’s meticulous ECG recordings. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
The bed on which the man lies is in the office room where also scattered are non-functioning electrocardiogram (ECG) machines awaiting repair which “Double 88”, as octogenarian Dr. Ranasinghe calls himself, tinkers with whenever he is free.
He is into hearts and lungs, although he is not a medical doctor. His ‘niche speciality’ of biomedical engineering at a time when open-heart surgery was just beginning to beat in Sri Lanka in the early 1950s had seen major advances in “making do” with whatever was available to save numerous lives.
It is a letter arriving at the Sunday Times — nearly eight months after the publication of ‘A real life drama that is 150 years old’ on March 29 about the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) and its beginnings and achievements — that leads us to Dr. Ranasinghe.
For what had caught the eye of Dr. Ranasinghe had been the faded black-and-white photograph from the past, which depicts a demonstration, just before the first open-heart operation was performed at the then Colombo General Hospital.
Along with pioneering Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr. A.T.S. Paul and Chief Anaesthetist Dr. Thistle Jayawardana is none other than Dr. Ranasinghe.
We meet Dr. Ranasinghe on the stormy Sunday of November 15 in his palatial ancestral home set amidst six acres of coconut trees and bamboo groves in the heart of Gampaha.
Here, in the office room adjacent to his home, he records the ECG of people who seek out his skills, while also training technologists in this art and repairing machines sent by any hospital, while listening to music on a huge radio.
The other facets of his busy life are also strewn around – all the medals awarded to him in Thailand and South Korea for his ‘Lionism’, work as a Lions Club member in Sri Lanka and optometry.
As our conversation veers towards the first open-heart surgery, details of which are hazy with the passage of time, Dr. Ranasinghe throws light on how he, the “one and only” electro-medical officer of those times introduced the heart-lung machine, which was also operated by him as there was no one else trained to do so at that time.
The heart-lung machine is used to temporarily transfer the functions of the patient’s heart to enable the surgical team to operate on it.
Dr. Ranasinghe’s other innovations also included the conversion of an oscilloscope to a cardiac monitor, as such monitors were unavailable in Sri Lanka then.
Harking back to that photograph, he picks out the wrap-around cooling and warming blanket used on the patient undergoing open-heart surgery, long before machines which did the job came into being.
“This type of blanket was not available here until I introduced it after my training abroad,” says Dr. Ranasinghe, going back to times before that to create visuals of what was done locally.
“Before the blankets, the patient was immersed in a bath-tub filled with ice cubes till the requisite drop in temperature was reached and then transferred to the operating table.”
He talks at length of the enormous contributions of the ‘ministering angels’ of those times who included Sisters Peters and Silva and Nurse Sika.
Before venturing into the layout of the then Colombo General Hospital, he smilingly recalls how Dr. Paul, would repeatedly censure anyone who called him ‘Dr’ insisting that he was not a Ph.D holder and as such should be referred to as ‘Mr’.
Having undergone radiotherapy training, it was Dr. Ranasinghe who became part of the Electro-Medical Engineering Unit taking charge of the maintenance of electronic equipment in all the hospitals……..and it is to his credit, so long ago, that the first Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or recovery room of the Colombo General Hospital came into being adjacent to the Operating Theatre, followed by the first ICU of the Gampaha Hospital as well.
The Colombo General Hospital, the Gampaha Hospital and the Institute of Cardiology also got systems to access oxygen through pipes inserted in the walls due to his efforts.
Before that there would be urgent shouts such as “silindar eka genna, ledata oygen denna” (bring the cylinder to give oxygen to the patient) whenever there was an emergency, with the cylinder being manually wheeled close to the patient.
It could be a life-and-death moment if the cylinder was brought late. The installation of wall oxygen was indeed a pioneering effort by him, where at the turn of a tap, a patient could be given life-saving oxygen.
In more recent times, in his retirement years, Dr. Ranasinghe has been repairing discarded apparatus, including defibrillators which some nursing staff with foresight at the Gampaha Hospital send to him with the Director’s permission. (Defibrillators which are electronic devices give an electric shock to the heart to restore normal rhythms.)
Usually, the Casualty Ward would have to borrow in a rush a defibrillator from the Surgical Ward whenever there was an emergency.
However, a far-thinking nurse seeing a cast-off had suggested that it be sent to Dr. Ranasinghe whose skilful hands were able to restore its functionality.
The day it was returned to the Gampaha Hospital by him two young, expectant mothers had been saved by the machine. “Not just two but four lives were spared,” says Dr. Ranasinghe, referring to the unborn babies.
Along the corridors of time he walks back, explaining that the first X-ray Department of the Colombo General Hospital was in the old, main building under the charge of gold medallist Radiologist Dr. H.O. Gunawardana.
Next to it was the original Electro-Medical Repair Unit, coming under the purview of the Physiotherapy Department headed by Dr. Frank Perera, with Caspersz (sometimes, the first names elude Dr. Ranasinghe) in charge of it, accommodated in a tiny cubicle near the Metaban Ward, in the old Outpatients Department (OPD) along Ward Place.
Foreman Jayasuriya and his assistants David Perera and Raymond handled the maintenance of the Repair Unit which would later evolve into the Electro-Medical Engineering Department.
The Radiotherapy Department, meanwhile, headed by Dr. Welikala administered radiation needle therapy for patients suffering from oral and cervix cancer.
It was above this unit that the Thoracic Ward of Dr. Paul was located and Dr. Ranasinghe reminisces how when he took two weeks off for his wedding, with stern demeanour Dr. Paul was quick to reprimand him that “marriage can’t stop our work”. Dr. Ranasinghe dispels any misconceptions by adding that Dr. Paul was “only joking”.
Explaining that the Cardiology Unit at the General Hospital was initiated by Dr. Obeysekera, he says that after him was Dr. N.J. Walloopillai.
Moving away from hospitals and electronic equipment, Dr. Ranasinghe goes back to his childhood and his twin-interests of medicine and electronics.
From Bendiyamulla in Gampaha town, his primary education was at various schools close to home, joining St. Joseph’s College, Maradana in Grade 7.
The Senior School Certificate (SSC) examination was a challenge and it was to take his mind away from his studies that he joined the Radio Club, due to his fascination with electronics.
Getting past the hurdle of mathematics and science at the London Matriculation Examination, World War II saw him join the Gampaha branch of Ananda College, rejoining St. Joseph’s College when the war ended, from where he sat the university entrance examination
“I was short of just eight marks to enter Medical College,” he smiles, which then sent him to Pembroke Academy to attempt the second-shy.
It was not to be. An advertisement for X-ray technicians (currently known as radiographers) sealed his fate, moving him along a pathway which would see numerous benefits to the state medical sector because of his career-choice.
His first appointment was at the Colombo General Hospital, later undergoing training and passing the examination to secure the qualification of Member of the Society of Radiographers, London.
There was no turning back and the qualifications piled up with training in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Japan, gaining competence in cardiac monitoring systems in the United States of America and being conferred with a Doctorate in Biomedical Engineering by the University of Massachusetts Boston. By this time he had also mastered electro-encephalographic apparatus.
Having also served in Kandy, Galle and Kurunegala Hospitals, Dr. Ranasinghe has gone beyond the call of duty, equipping the Gampaha Hospital with all the necessary devices.
This dedication has not ended even with retirement, for Dr. Ranasinghe is only a phone call away whenever the Gampaha Hospital’s Cardiology Unit has a breakdown or needs biomedical engineering advice.