APSL (UK) to help Lanka hospitals

The Association of Professional Sri Lankans (APSL) UK, have launched a unique website to help Sri Lanka hospitals. This project has been approved by the Secretary to the Ministry of Health and the pilot project is aimed at Colombo South Teaching Hospital. This is designed to be an ongoing project, and if the pilot project is successful all other major hospitals in the country too could benefit from the project. The APSL website will list the hospital needs approved by the hospital director. These requirements are a mixture of medical equipment and non medical items for the hospital use such as mosquito nets, water filters etc.

The donors may be surprised to find the cost of some items starts from as little as a few hundred rupees to suit the pocket of anyone who wishes to donate. Ideally these items could be bought from local companies and handed over to the hospital authorities by the donors themselves, or on their behalf their friends or relatives in Sri Lanka.

Despite working under severe financial constrains, Sri Lankan hospitals provide an excellent service to the patients. As the government is only able to provide basic facilities, there are many aspects of the hospital service open for improvement. The APSL hopes that this web site will help to bridge this gap, further more, in some instances the equipment you donate could save the life of a fellow Sri Lankan.

You can access the website by going to the APSL official site www.apsl.org.uk and clicking on Sri Lanka Hospitals Needs page. This web site does not have the facilities or authority to collect financial donations or funds as the idea is for the donors to buy the items locally from companies (listed on the web site) and hand directly to a nominee of the hospital director.

There are many Sri Lankans across the world who may have wanted to make a charitable hospital donation either as individuals, families, an organisation, company or a charity but up to now there was no way of finding out what actually the hospitals want. This website will also help many Sri Lankans who also may want to donate items to hospitals in memory of a loved one. Hopefully this website will enable them to find out the hospital needs wherever they are either in Sri Lanka or abroad at a click of a button.

Dr. Uditha Jayatunga,

Co-ordinator APSL, Consultant Physician,

University Hospitals of Leicester, UK.