Cricket supporter Dr. Quintus gets Sri Lankan of the Year award

Sri Lanka's greatest supporter in cricket in Australia - Dr. Quintus de Zylva, won the coveted award - Sri Lankan of the Year at the Serendib Network News awards at the Crown Palladium.

The award is given to the person who has made the greatest contribution to Sri Lanka in the past two years.

The citation drew attention to the fact that Dr. Quintus de Zylva had the Australia - Sri Lanka Medical Aid Team since Tsunami 2004 and has delivered more than four million dollars worth of medical equipment to the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital in Galle.

A new million dollar six bed cardiac monitoring coronary care facility was donated by Phillips Australia within a few weeks of the devastation caused by Tsunami and Dr. De Zylva and the medical team were on hand to supervise the installation of this equipment - done by engineers from Australia.

Echocardiograph machines, defibrillators and several other much needed medical and surgical items were subsequently transported to Galle including 100 hospital beds.

The Australia-Sri Lanka Medical Aid Team will make their tenth visit to Galle and Hambantota early next month. Experts in the field of cardiology, orthopaedic surgery, infectious diseases and paediatrics have been members of this medical team.

Dr. Quintus de Zylva has also been a founding trustee of the Sri Lanka Cricket Foundation of Victoria that was formed in 1985 to support Sri Lanka Cricket.

Aravinda de Silva and Roshan Mahanama were invited guests at this gala function to honour Sri Lankans who had contributed to Sri Lanka. Roshan Mahanama was the first recipient of a three month cricket scholarship to Melbourne and since then several young cricketers have been hosted by the Sri Lanka Cricket Foundation of Melbourne.

Milinda Siriwardana (Kalutara Vidyalaya) and Harsha Vithana (St. Aloysius' College, Galle) will arrive in Melbourne shortly to play for the Prahran Cricket Club and will be looked after by the Sri Lanka Cricket Foundation of Victoria.

The late Eddie Gray and the late Fred Van Buren were founder members of the Sri Lanka Circket Foundation of Melbourne.

Dr. Quintus was educated at Kingswood College, Kandy. He is widowed and has two children and three grandsons. He has been a consultant physician in Melbourne for many years and has been on the staff of the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He currently practises at Epworth Hospital in Richmond Victoria. He is a panel member of the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria.