SL doctor wins UK Health Service Excellence Award

Tuesday, 11 June 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Dr. Lilantha Wedisinghe, a Specialist Trainee in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, received the Excellence Award for ‘Creativity and Innovation’ at the National Health Service Dumfries and Galloway’s Annual Awards Ceremony held recently.

Dr. Wedisinghe was the Principal Investigator of the Dumfries and Galloway Cervical Screening Study.

For the first time in Scotland, the research team has offered self sampling for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) screening to all women who haven’t had a ‘Pap’ test in Dumfries and Galloway County.

The hallmark of this test was to find out the virus, which can cause cervical cancer, in a sample collected by woman herself at home. Consequently, about a fourth of cervical screening program non-attendees have been screened. Ultimately, they were able to diagnose and treat a large number of cervical pre-cancers, thereby preventing cervical cancer, in this group of women.

“This Excellence Award is a great appreciation of our effort of promoting cervical screening, which has no limits” he added. Dr. Wedisinghe believes that it would be possible to introduce this HPV ‘home testing’ to Sri Lanka in the future, in view to improve cervical screening attendance.

“However, ‘Pap’ is the most reliable cervical screening test that we have at present, which very is capable of saving lives. In the UK, 75% to 80% women have their Pap test, regularly. It is estimated that this saves about 5,000 lives every year. But, only about 2% to 3% Sri Lankan women have the Pap test. About 1,000 women in Sri Lanka are diagnosed with cervical cancer per year and sadly, about two women are dying of the disease every day.”

He further said that therefore, it is everyone’s responsibility to make sure that female members in their families aged between 35 and 60 years get screened. “Almost all of us get the HPV infection at some part in our lives, but only women whose immune system is unable to get rid of the virus (which is about one in 10 women) are at risk of developing the disease. Without a screening test, we wouldn’t know who is at risk. Pap test is a simple test that could save your life.”

The first runner up of the ‘Creativity and Innovation’ award category was the University of Highlands and Islands. The second runner up was the Major Incident Planning Group. Ten more awards were been awarded at the ceremony such as Caring Together, Working Together, Patients award, Leadership, Team of the Year, Volunteer of the Year and the Chairman’s award.

Dr. Wedisinghe is an Old Nalandian. He graduated from the Colombo Medical School in 2003. He has been a Specialist Trainee in the UK since 2005 and is currently reading for his PhD with the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry on cervical screening which is due to be completed in 2014.