People power funds first-ever COVID ward at Panadura Base Hospital

Panadura is a bustling southern coastal town with a population of about 265,700, which feeds many peripheral smaller towns by providing diverse services to a large migrant population, of which healthcare takes precedence. Panadura Base Hospital (PBH) stands tall in this grand scheme of services. 

The hospital was established in 1873 as a small medical facility which later developed into a fully-fledged Base Hospital with nine wards, specialised health services and clinics, an ETU, an ICU, a dialysis unit, manned by 164 medical officers, 21 specialists and 222 nursing officers. 

PBH functioned as an intermediary centre for COVID patient management since the start of the pandemic. However, escalating numbers of COVID patients by mid-2021 threatened to break this health facility. No surprise that some of the patients had to be kept on the floor due to the lack of infrastructure available to face the kind of pandemic the country is faced with. Most days, the bed to patient ratio of the male and female wards has been 2:1.

It is a known fact that most of our medical professionals go above and beyond to save lives. The team at the Base Hospital Panadura is no different. It is with this objective that the hospital management, led by Medical Superintendent Dr. Indrani Godakanda and her able team of doctors ideated the possibility of dedicating two exclusive Covid wards for males and females. They knew they could utilise available Government fund allocations to make structural changes for two existing wards. 

And what then? This is when the team of doctors strategised to reach out to friends and family, gently asking around for ‘small donations’ to help with their endeavour. With no hesitation, people opened their hearts and wallets, and the rest as they say is history.

Rotary Club of Colombo Regency was one of the first social groups to respond to the request of a specialist doctor in the team with their donation of a wall oxygen system and other high valued machines. 

Panadura is a well-known town of philanthropists. Therefore, it didn’t take long for a group of friends to promptly come together, calling themselves ‘Let’s Save Our Hospitals,’ to reach out to friends and families in Panadura, which gave give an impetus to this drive. 

In parallel, another group of friends and family formed an ‘informal charity group’ and started requesting for funds. This was the start of an amazing one week of endless reaching out. It is hard to believe how a Facebook appeal, a LinkedIn post and a simple flyer hurriedly created by members of this group just took wings. 

‘Spread a Little Love,’ another socially conscious group, totally unconnected to Panadura, joined hands to collect funds for this cause as well. The appeal flew to every corner of the world. People warmed up to the simple message of Panadura hospital needing funds to ‘save lives of COVID patients.’ This is the true power of sharing a genuine message, with zero sugar coating.

Within just a week of calls, emails, messages, begging and cajoling, the collections sored. Friends, friends of friends, families, friends of families, known and unknown, those living here and not living here, social groups, corporates, Trust Funds and more kept giving and giving, from as little as Rs. 100 to Rs. 1.5 million. It became an overwhelming out pouring of donations. The reality of this is that most of those who contributed would most probably never get treatment from this hospital. But that didn’t stop their desire of ‘giving’. 

What made this a success is that there was a central source of collection, procurement and management of the funds and equipment that were being donated. A trusted source with integrity was crucial in a process of this nature. People asked no questions as they simply believed in the cause, it seemed. 

Through strategic use of social media and other virtual platforms, transparency and credibility of the project was established. Every cent donated was recorded and accounted for with regular updates shared on an ongoing basis. Transparency, accountability, integrity were the corner stones of success of this drive. In an environment where utilisation of COVID funds is in question, the project coordinators made sure this had none of that.

This crowd-funded donation included high flow nasal cannulas, multi para monitors, ICU/HDU beds, BiPAP machines, pulse oximeters, infusion pumps, syringe pumps, portable ventilators, oxygen concentrators, PPE kits for one month, air conditioning units, partitioning of ICU unit, wall oxygen system and many other direct donations given in kind, which have not been captured by this article. A few more pieces of equipment to the tune of about Rs. 5 million are needed to be sourced as this piece is being written.

The final outcome of all this is two fully equipped COVID wards with 60 beds, comprising an ICU and an HDU unit costing approximately Rs. 45 million worth of equipment sourced both in cash and kind. 

All this has been handed over to the Panadura Base Hospital with no tamashas, ribbon cutting, plaques or ‘photo opps’, but just by experiencing the joy of giving. This is an unprecedented show of people’s power towards a single health facility in the country, with zero political patronage – an initiative which people of Panadura have led from the front with pride.