Nearly 2,300 Sri Lankans received medical consultations, diagnostics services and medical advice free-of-charge in 2023 under a long-running community initiative funded by Ceylinco Life.
Sri Lanka’s life insurance market leader conducted 10‘WaidyaHamuwa’ (Meet the doctor) medical camps in the year just concluded, taking a team of doctors and medical technicians and diagnostic equipment tofar-flung towns and villages providing people an opportunity to be checked by and to discuss their medical problems with medical professionals.
Among the locations covered were towns such as Puthukkudiyiruppu, Vavuniya, Pahalakudapattiya, Avukana, Bibile, Badalkumbura, Divulankadawala, Panduwasnuwara, Mahapathana and Ruwanwellain theMullaitivu, Vavuniya, Anuradhapura, Moneragala, Polonnaruwa, Kurunegala, Kandy and Ratnapura districts.
Many of those benefitted belonged to local farming communities and included paddy farmers,tea plantation workers and their family members. Most of them had limited access to diagnostics and preventive healthcare.
Each Waidya Hamuwa camp provided attendees the opportunity to undergo random orfasting blood sugar tests, ECGs, serum cholesterol tests, urine tests for Chronic Kidney Disease and to have their blood pressure checked. In addition, their Body Mass Index and vision were also checked. The Company said these Waidya Hamuwa programs are conducted with the objective of providing health screening for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), prescribing medicines to control them and providing advice on maintaining a healthy lifestyle to prevent NCDs.
The medical teams that conducted the camps reported that this year too, many attendeeswere diagnosed with hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, hypertension, bronchial asthma and heart conditions.
To date, Ceylinco Life’s WaidyaHamuwa programme has benefittedwell over 150,000 people via more than 400 medical camps across the country. These medical camps are conducted by qualified and experienced doctors and nursing staff attached to the state health sector and private laboratories, and professional opticians.
Ceylinco Life defines its Corporate Social Responsibility as ‘The continuing commitment of the company to create a sustainable business environment even in the remotest areas of the country through meaningful interventions in areas such as healthcare and education for needy people, while providing protection and financial security of the highest quality.”
In 2023, the Company built and donated to the Matale District General Hospital a pipe network that connects the hospital’s central oxygen concentrator with the wards, providing an uninterrupted supply of life-saving oxygen to nearly 300 beds. Ceylinco Life also donated a stock of essential medications to the General Hospital in Trincomalee.
Another important contribution of Ceylinco Life is the donation of fully-equipped High Dependency Units (HDUs) to the Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila, the National Hospital, Colombo, the Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital, the Jaffna Teaching Hospital and the Kandy Teaching Hospital. HDUs are needed to upgrade a patient from normal care or as a step down from intensive care, helping release beds in the intensive care units. These units are used for post-surgery care, before transferring patients to the wards, or to treat an intensive disease.
