News

Instead of cakes, an enlightened and enterprising consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician took an initiative to produce a bakery of immense benefits for the patients of the Castle Street Maternity Hospital and other hospitals.

The consultant Dr. L. A.W. Sirisena speaking at a public meeting organized by the People’s Movement for the Rights of Patients yesterday outlined how he turned the cakes into wonders. Some years ago when Dr. Sirisena was Chief Consultant at the Castle Street Hospital he noted that most pregnant mothers who came there gave something like a cake worth about Rs. 500 to the staff when they left after the delivery of the baby.

Noting that this cake business was of little value and produced little besides cholesterol, Dr. Sirisena held a dialogue with the pregnant mothers and their husbands. They came to a decision that instead of cakes the couples would donate at least Rs. 100 to improve conditions at the hospitals.

Within years with some contributing a few thousands the fund swelled to a whopping 4.1 million rupees. What did they do with it? They built modern toilets for the hospital; installed fans for every bed, donated a cardiac monitor and water coolers for all the wards. The cardiac monitor cost Rs. 365,000.

They did not stop with the Castle Street Hospital. They also bought a scanner worth Rs. 685,000 and donated it to a hospital in poverty stricken Hambantota.

Inspired by the magnificent response, Dr. Sirisena started monthly parent craft classes for pregnant mothers and their husbands. This is intended to get the husbands closely involved in every stage of maternity delivery and the care of the new born child.

These classes started by Dr. Sirisena at Castle Street Hospital are now continued by him monthly at the Dharmavijeya Foundation Hall. So far the parent craft classes have been in the Sinhala medium but from September 3, Dr. Sirisena will have classes in the Tamil Language also.

The keynote speech at yesterday’s PMRP was given by Dr. Palitha Abeykoon, a senior advisor for the World Health Organisation in Colombo, Advisor to the Health Ministry and facilitator of the National Standing Committee implementing a National Medicinal Drugs Policy.

He highlighted some structural imbalances and distortions in the Health Sector pointing out that the total allocated from the country’s budget for the health care of an individual was only 32 US$ a year.

Dr. Abeykoon pointed out that the world vision in healthcare was now being transformed from death prevention to life promotion and Sri Lanka needed to take steps to fall in line. He said health services provided only 25% towards the good heath of a person.

More the 50% of the contributory factors towards good health or ill health of a person came from social conditions such as poverty, the environment, the provision of clean water and sanitation.

Professor Carlo Fonseka, one of Sri Lanka’s most eminent medical personalities also spoke at the meeting along with Dr. K. Balasubramaniam, coordinator Health Action International Asia Pacific. Dr. Balasubramaniam said poverty was the main disease and hunger the biggest killer.

Dr. Joel Fernando and consultant nutritionist Dr. Damayanthi Perera also spoke.