By:Staff WriterColombo (LNW): Sri Lanka will receive US$ 46 million worth essential medicine and medical equipment from the Medical Help International USA next month. This was disclosed by Director Operations and Communications of Medical Help Sri Lanka Global project, Paddy Dassanayake who called on Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena at the Temple Tees earlier this week.
She said Medical Help International donates emergency medicines and other medical supplies to help vulnerable people of the society in coordination with the government body of beneficiary country and international, corporate and individual donors.
The Prime Minister appreciated their generosity which was purely voluntary to help vulnerable groups in society and accepted their assistance with gratitude. He further claimed that this assistance granted in an hour of need would immensely benefit the Sri Lankans.
The Medical Help International has extended its support to Sri Lanka since April 2022 to date worth LKR 78.3 Billion. It corresponds and coordinates with Sri Lanka Ministry of Health and while there are many categories of pharmaceutical drugs that are donated, a larger volume consisted of oncology, dialysis solutions, diabetic medicine including insulin to cover the huge medical shortage in the health care sector. Among these assistance, 1000 KVA Generator worth 42 million Rupees granted to Karapitiya hospital is one another huge contribution.
Ms. Paddy Dassanayake stated that some future projects are also in pipeline to assist Sri Lanka and supply of stents to Colombo National Hospital, supply of equipment to the new buildings in the National Hospital and Jaffna Hospital .
Medical Help International’s Project Coordinator, Dilini De Silva said a fundraising campaign for Sri Lanka’s 1st paediatric cardiology hospital at Lady Ridgeway hospital for Children has been initiated by the Sri Lankan expatriate community and general manager of Sri Lankan Airlines (Cargo), Chaminda Perera has made arrangements to air freight all the entire stock of medicine and equipment from US to Colombo free of cost.