8th November 1998

A doctor's burning desire

By Tharuka Dissanaike

Dr. Wijaya Godakumbura, armed with the Rolex Laureate for Innovation, has returned to Sri Lanka, all smiles but begging for government support of his safe bottle -lamp scheme.

Dr. Godakumbura, 58, whose efforts (of inventing a safe kerosene lamp and popularising it's use) were recognised by the Swiss watch maker, Rolex, was awarded the company's laureate for innovation in the field of science and medicine at a dizzying ceremony held in Geneva recently.

Dr Godakumbura plans to use the US $ 50,000 prize money to manufacture half a million of these bottle lamps every year.

Chosen as a laureate from among 2200 applicants, Dr. Godakumbura was ecstatic that his years of hard work and hard campaigning has now borne fruit. But he stressed, "I need government support to reach all those rural homes who use unsafe bottle lamps today."

He said that without a helping hand from the state his lamp- project "will be like having a BMW at home in the garage without petrol to run it".

Dr. Godakumbura's innovation is surprisingly simple. Where households use any available bottle to turn out unsafe lamps which topple at the lightest movement and spill kerosene easily, often with disastrous results for the people who use the lamp, Dr. Godakumbura designed a bottle with flat sides- very much akin to a Marmite bottle, heavy bottomed and with a screw-on lid which will prevent seepage or spillage of kerosene.

This was designed to minimise burn injury from bottle lamp accidents. Over 40 percent of all burns in the country are attributed to kerosene accidents. Even last week a 23-year-old woman died of burn injuries when kerosene from the lamp she was using to light the hearth, spilled on her dress and it caught fire. She was rushed to hospital by the distraught husband and died, agonisingly, soon after.

"It is the kerosene seepage that causes the more serious burns. While others were bent on designing lamps where the flame would be extinguished when toppled, I went for this simple model which simply prevents fuel leakage. It is more successful because the lamp can be mass produced at minimal cost".

With as many as 57 percent of the country's homes being out of reach of the electricity grid lines, use of kerosene as the source of lighting is very common. Dr. Godakumbura estimates that there are at least 3 million unsafe home-made bottle lamps in use in the country.

Sadly many of these burn victims are children- they study in the lamp light, or women-in the kitchen.

Dr. Godakumbura, a General Physician of the National Hospital had seen too many of these victims. The horrendous scars and disfigurement caused by kerosene burns often lead patients to question the doctors as to why their lives were saved at all. Many become social outcasts following severe disfigurement and others die in terrible pain as their wounds become infected.

As far back as 1971, Dr. Godakumbura wrote and spoke out on the ill-effects of the home made bottle lamp used in many homes. In 1992, on his own initiative,he launched the Safe Bottle Lamp Project. Through this project the doctor developed the safe bottle lamp. The lamps are manufactured at a glass factory in Jaela.

"We can manufacture 500,000 lamps a year. But we do not have the retail network to distribute the lamps to the furthest, most distant villages. This is why we appeal to the government to help in spreading the use of the safe bottle lamp.

"The lamp is sold to households at cost- at Rs.12/-.If we do it on our own, we will only be able to distribute seven percent of our production capacity. That's all," Godakumbura said.

He estimates that the saving in money which is drained as medical costs treating these burn victims in state hospitals will be as much as Rs. 286 million, if all the households using kerosene for lighting could switch to the safe bottle-lamp.

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