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How Pera Uni’s Dental Faculty & Hospital cut its teeth and went on to make great strides
View(s):- Japanese aid supported a high-end facility for the poorest of the poor
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
It was back in the 1950s that the boy was taken every week from his home far away to Peradeniya. Now in his 70s, his smile is perfect – the teeth are well-aligned.
With his teeth growing crooked during his boyhood, the weekly visits to Peradeniya have paid rich dividends.
The birth of another young woman from Kuliyapitiya who is now in her 20s, had brought much heartache to her parents. Recalling the heartrending sight, the father says “yakek upanna wage” (like the birth of a devil). She had a bilateral cleft and palate, where the cleft (split) was on both sides of the lip, leaving a gaping hole in her face. It occurs when tissues in the baby’s face and mouth do not fuse properly.
A modern Dental Unit
“Huge problems we had,” says the father, the biggest being feeding her.
At the tender age of three weeks, the baby had undergone the first surgery and everything had fallen into place, with long-term treatment and care happening smoothly. Now with hardly a visible sign of that early deformity, she is an architecture student leading a normal life.
These are just two instances where children’s lives have changed for the better due to expertise, skill and kindness in abundance at a state health institution which has grown from strength to strength.
This is the institution – the Peradeniya University’s Faculty of Dental Sciences with its very own hospital now – that will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in its current state-of-the-art home made possible by the generosity of the Japanese government which had provided a “full donation” through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to establish this complex in 1998.
The beginnings of dental education and treatment in Sri Lanka had been humble and it is Prof. Dileep De Silva, Chair Professor of Community Dentistry, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya, who takes us down memory lane as he says that dental education in a “formal” manner began back in 1938 in Colombo.
A view of the new hospital and faculty
Medical education had started in 1870 with the setting up of the Ceylon Medical College with students graduating with a Licentiate in Medicine & Surgery. In 1938, a few of these medical graduates had begun studying for their Licentiate in Dental Surgery as a two-year post-graduate course. However, after two batches had gone down this pathway, the Licentiate in Dental Surgery had ground to a halt.
Prof. De Silva who has written extensively on the history of dental education has not been able to drill out the reason why this closure came about.
By 1943, the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course had been launched at the Ceylon Medical College of the University of Ceylon in Colombo, with just four students as the first batch and six as the second batch.
With theoretical knowledge having to be fortified by practical knowledge and skills, a tiny Dental Unit had seen the light of day at the Colombo General Hospital (now the National Hospital of Sri Lanka).
The new Dental Faculty and Hospital complex
“Do you know that this Dental Unit had been established in the former stables as in the early days (1940s), some doctors had ridden horses to work,” asks Prof. De Silva, stating that it is now the site of the nine-storey Dental Hospital in Colombo off Ward Place.
With interaction with the community being a vital part of dental treatment, the search for a bigger and better hub had led to attention being riveted on Peradeniya, where the new campus of the University of Ceylon had begun functioning amidst ‘great natural beauty’ on the banks of the swiftly-flowing Mahaweli River in the early-1950s.
The Dental School had also been shifted from Colombo to the Peradeniya campus by 1953. With the second Medical College being established at Peradeniya in 1961, the Dental School had been affiliated to it, functioning as a department there. It had been elevated to the status of the Faculty of Dental Sciences in 1986.
The Dental School’s home though had been away from the Peradeniya Medical College, functioning on Augusta Hill in Dangolla from 1953 to 1998. “Interestingly, Dangolla was where the boarding of Kingswood College had been,” says Prof. De Silva, explaining that there were only limited facilities here. Dangolla was also out of the way for the humble people who needed dental services for they came by public transport and had to walk a long distance to get there.
There was a dire need for a fully-fledged Dental Hospital as many people were under the impression that Dental Surgeons were only into the filling or extraction of teeth.
It was in 1995 that the “very positive” intervention of JICA came about, says Prof. De Silva, pointing out that they donated a new sophisticated and fully-equipped complex for the Faculty of Dental Sciences and Hospital, right next to the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital.
Easily accessible to the public as it was off the Kandy-Colombo Road, the unwritten motto of those at this Faculty of Dental Sciences and Hospital is: Excellent service with a smile.
| A 25-year saga Tomorrow, June 12, the Peradeniya Faculty of Dental Sciences and Hospital complex set up in 1998 celebrates 25 years (silver jubilee). It is thanks to a donation by the Japanese government through JICA that this high-end facility has become a reality to tend to the needs of Sri Lanka’s poorest of the poor. The Dean of the Peradeniya University’s Faculty of Dental Sciences, Prof. Manjula Attygalla says that the faculty continues to pursue excellence in dental education, research and oral health care. Through its innovative curriculum, top-notch facilities, community outreach initiatives and commitment to research, it is firmly established as a leading institution in the field, attracting local and international students seeking exceptional dental education and training. “In 2017, the faculty made significant strides by converting its Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) programme from a four-year to a five-year curriculum. This transformation to an outcome-based, student-centred approach aligned the educational environment with global standards of dental education,” he said. He added that at the core of the faculty is the Dental Teaching Hospital, which serves as a tertiary referral centre providing preventive care, advanced diagnostics and modern treatment modalities. This is while the Centre for Research on Oral Cancer (CROC) within the faculty promotes research on oral diseases, particularly oral cancer. Wide and varied are the services provided by this largest Dental Hospital in the country. They include: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery; Restorative Dentistry; Prosthetics; Oral Medicine & Periodontology; Community Dental Health (Orthodontics, Paedodontics & Public Oral Health); Oral Pathology; Basic Sciences and Comprehensive Oral Healthcare. The modern 175 Dental Units, the state-of-the-art Operating Theatre (OT); the Intensive Care Unit (ICU); and in-ward facilities are supported by fully-equipped Dental Laboratories and a sophisticated Radiological Investigative Unit. The Dental Hospital caters to those from the Kandy district and also referrals from across the country. It treats about 10,000 patients per month, while around 1,200 major surgeries are performed here every year. It is a tertiary care referral hospital for oral cancer surgery; cleft lip & palate reconstruction; and facial trauma. Meanwhile, the Faculty of Dental Sciences with its 60 academic staff and all its lecture halls; anatomy, physiology and skill laboratories; E-lab; library; and administrative wing provides extensive training not only to dental undergraduate and postgraduate (PG) students but also attracts PG trainees from neighbouring countries. Of the high-level academic staff, 21 have obtained PhDs and 23 are Board Certified as specialists. Among them are three who have both PhDs and MDs. From 1947-2023, through the portals of the Faculty of Dental Sciences, have passed 3,281 Dental Surgeons. “Among the 3,281 Dental Surgeons, 1,923 (nearly 60%) have been produced since 1998. They have walked out of the faculty armed with their qualifications and skills in the last 25 years, due to the enhanced training and service capacity of the new hospital and faculty complex,” adds Prof. Dileep De Silva. | |
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