Batticaloa Hospital project:

National trauma service to link regional hospitals

By Kurulu Kariyakarawana

The Health sector is an important subject that has to be developed in a country in any region. Whether it is a world superpower or a developing nation health facilities have to be given top priority. In western, southern and central provinces as well as many other areas the condition of the health sector is satisfying. And it is noteworthy that the gap between the levels of the medical facilities in northern and eastern provinces compared to the rest of the country still exists. This is why a project was launched to introduce a national trauma service in Sri Lanka that would link the regional hospitals.

Batticaloa Teaching Hospital

3D model of the new E and A Unit

The foreground which will be used to build the new unit.

Patients in the wards

Patients on sophisticated beds Pix by Chinthaka Kumarasinghe

Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. David A Young	CEO Nihal de Run

The BEAP Project (Batticaloa Teaching Hospital Emergency and Accident) was launched by the Foundation supporting a national trauma service in Sri Lanka. The Foundation is a trust registered in Sri Lanka and Australia and would create a public private partnership between the government and the private sector to raise funds for the project. The project selected four regional teaching hospitals in strategically crucial locations where medical attention is gravely required. They were Karapitiya, Ampara, Batticaloa and Jaffna.

Karapitiya Teaching Hospital was first upgraded and installed with state of the art equipment and staff of doctors and surgeons well trained for any type of emergency or accidental situation. The project was co-funded by the Government of Victoria in Australia and Government of Sri Lanka. A new emergency and accident unit comprising all the surgical equipment was built with a sophisticated ward with 60 beds.

Having completed this the attention was moved towards Batticaloa Teaching Hospital the main hospital affiliated to University of East. Since the 30 year old war gave limited access to the government health authorities to develop and upgrade this hospital as well as Batticaloa being the capital town of the Eastern Province the priority was given for the Project BEAP. Batticaloa Teaching Hospital currently has a capacity of 900 beds in 32 wards. An average 700 patients seek emergency and orthopaedic treatment everyday and 200 of them are admitted each day. Moreover 600 patients come in search of special care treatment and 40 of them are transferred to Special Care Unit everyday.

Explaining the BEAP Project President of BEAP Foundation senior Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. David A Young said the foundation was based on his concept to enrich the main regional hospitals in Sri Lanka with emergency and accident service units or trauma service units by witnessing the devastation caused by the tsunami catastrophe in 2004. I was having a close connection with Sri Lankan cricket spin wizard Mutthiah Muralidharan as one of his orthopaedic consultants back in 2004 and immediately after the tsunami catastrophe he urged me to visit Sri Lanka to support the local medical teams handling a massive number of patients in countrywide. Within few days I visited the country with an Australian medical team and travelled to many parts including the Eastern range which had been badly hit by the tragedy and many casualties were being treated with very limited facilities.

I witnessed how local medical teams were struggling with remaining facilities and not having proper emergency and accident treatment unit in the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital. Then only I realised that a project of this sort should be introduced to upgrade the medical facilities in Batticaloa and install it with a fully fledged trauma service unit like in any other developed part of the world to face future disasters or to treat day to day casualties.

Even to date the Batticaloa hospital wards are overflowing with patients due to the lack of space, beds and some suffer due to lack of proper medical attention. For starters we have donated 84 sophisticated electric beds to the hospital with mattresses, Dr. Young said.

History

The Foundation Supporting A National Trauma Service was established in September 25 in 2011 when a Deed of Trust was signed by Dr. David A Young, Nihal de Run, Nalin Pathikirikorale, Indrajith Fernando and Yoland (Bobby) Hansen as Trustees of the Trust in Colombo. It was also granted legal status in Australia with having Governor of Victoria Professor David de Kretser as the Patron and Dr. Ranjith Hettiarachchi and Abbas Akbarally as Vice Patrons. Nihal de Run was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer with Dr. Greg Hoy as the Vice President. The foundation appointed cricketing legends Mutthiah Muralidharan, Kumar Sangakkara, Dav Whatmore and Shane Watson as its Ambassadors.

The project was launched with the understanding of the Ministries of Health and Higher Education of Sri Lanka that the entire project cost will be divided 50 percent by the BEAP Foundation and the former. The project was designed in two steps which the first phase is to build the Emergency and Accident Unit that will cost a sum of four million USD. The BEAP Foundation is funding two million USD of this and the rest will be funded by the Sri Lankan government. The first phase also includes the drawing of blueprints and engineering sketches and the construction work is scheduled to commence in August 2014 following the hiring of suitable contractor through tender procedure.

The second phase of the project is to equip the new building with state of the art surgical tools, equipment, furniture, beds and interior which the cost is estimated at two million USD.

Out of this a million USD will be funded by the BEAP Foundation and the rest by the government. Explaining how the fund raising program is in process CEO BEAP Project Nihal de Run said the foundation has already raised a sum of 1.2 million USD and is in dire need of another 800, 000 USD to commence the first half half of the building project. The fund raising is currently being conducted both locally and internationally where many reputed organisations and companies have either donated large sums of money or have pledged to do so in the process of the on going project. The completion of the fund raising is targeted in August 2014 and the completion of the project and handing over the new building is scheduled in August 2015.

Leading organisations like Sri Lanka Telecom, Asiri Group of Hospitals, John Keells Group, Baurs, Phoenix, Tokyo Cement Company (Lanka) Ltd and Melbourn Orthopaedic Group have already funded in the project to date.

Making a request Dr. David A Young said that the BEAP Project calls on all corporate Sri Lankans to donate to this worthy cause which could lead to a better medical system in the country with a national trauma service in place.