National cricketers go on campaign to help COVID-19 patients

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka white ball captain Dasun Shanaka

Dr. Kushan Atukorala of the Kalubowila (Colombo South) Teaching Hospital

The Sri Lankan cricketers have decided to help purchase a Rs. 3.7 million ventilator for the Kalubowila (Colombo South) Teaching Hospital to set up an ICU Unit to assist COVID-19 affected patients.

As an initial contribution, Sri Lanka’s white ball captain and winning SLC Greys team captain Dasun Shanaka donated his prize money of Rs. 200,000 that he won as Dialog SLC Invitational T20 League Player of the Tournament to the cause.

The Greys team manager Charith Senanayake said that the rest of the team including players and support staff would contribute a further Rs. 280,000 towards the fund which Shanaka said that he has taken the responsibility to handle.

Shanaka said that senior players like Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal are also helping to raise the money and he was hopeful that they can collect around Rs. 2 million.

“We have collected about Rs. 1 million so far and when other contributions come from the rest of the cricketers we should be able to collect around Rs. 2 million. We want to collect the money as quickly as possible and hand it over after the end of the week,” said Shanaka.

When it was pointed out that they would be still Rs. 1.7 million short of the required target, Shanaka replied: “It’s not only us, there are also others who make donations to the hospital, along with their money they can purchase it.”

Dr. Kushan Atukorala, a medical officer attached to the Dengue High-dependency Unit (HDU) and a member of the Kalubowila (Colombo South) Teaching Hospital donation committee, said that they have already set up 20 beds at the ICU Unit and required about five ventilators.

“We got donations for 20 beds from different individuals from inside and outside the country. There are already two ventilators of Rs. 3.7 million being purchased in advance by two different donation groups. One single donor, Dr. Jagath Alwis, the ICBT chairman, brought one for us and a group of my friends purchased another. We need about five ventilators, the third one we are expecting the national cricketers would be able to purchase and donate to us,” said Dr. Atukorala. 

“There are other donors also in line who are trying to contribute for this particular machine, similarly like the cricket team they are collecting funds and doing the coordination work and get it directly from the company and hand it over to us. This is where we are at the moment.”

Explaining further Dr. Atukorala said: “This particular ventilator with an air compressor is required for patients who have breathing difficulties and need to be sustained for 2-3 days. If we are sustaining a patient we need to put him in a ventilator that does the job of the lungs pretty well, that is inhaling and exhaling both parts.”

Describing how the donation system works, Dr. Atukorala said: “We don’t collect money or take money to hand, so the donor has to come with the total amount and purchase the equipment by themselves and get it for us. That’s how it works. 

“As we are a Government institution plus we are individual bodies we are just conveying what we need. We can’t make any official requests. If someone reaches us and asks what we would want, we can convey our requirements to them. That much only we do from the hospital side.”

Ramith Ekanayaka, products manager and a bio-mechanical engineer of Medex Holdings Ltd. who import Bellavista fixed ventilators with air compressors from Switzerland said: “Basically a ventilator is a machine used to support the patient to breath. It’s a breathing support machine. When the patient cannot breathe on their own the ventilator is the only machine that will keep you alive when you are struggling between life and death.”

“There is a huge demand for ventilators now because of this pandemic. There was a demand for this ventilator even before COVID-19 but the general public didn’t know about it, only very few people like those who suffer from respiratory problems knew. 

“But when COVID-19 became very contagious everyone got to know about it. The ventilator became popular after the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s not only for COVID-19 even post COVID-19 it is very useful to have a ventilator for other respiratory diseases as well,” he said.