PERALIYA COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE
by Justin Hill (based on a Q&A with Candice Lim)

How did the project get started?
The project started as a concerted effort by three friends and many supporters to help those affected by the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka. Knowing the country quite well, and feeling shock from the devastation left by the tsunami, two friends and I decided to mount an emergency medical assistance programme in the southern coastal area. The area was well known to us over the years through friends and holidays there, and more recently, through the two projects the firm was engaged in.

Dr Thomas Stein, who is a surgeon from Germany; Deepal Wickremasinghe, a structural engineer in Colombo and director of the Ruhunu Hospital in Galle; and I contacted each other on the weekend of the disaster. Dr Stein was able to obtain emergency funds from a fund set up by the senate of the city of Hamburg, his hospital provided a team of specialist doctors, plans were made and approvals were put in place in Sri Lanka for a two-month emergency clinic, which commenced some six weeks after the disaster. Dr Stein led the clinic of several doctors and medical staff.

As the project gained momentum, we noticed the very slow recovery and appalling conditions in some areas. We also noticed that some foreign aid was not getting through to the victims, or that it was being distributed in an unplanned manner. A state of shock and helplessness prevailed, and in Peraliya, where our medical clinic was based, it seemed that many in the village had lost everything: loved ones, their homes, all basic facilities, the school and the village structure.

Peraliya had also been the location of a tragic train disaster at that time, where all aboard a train, passing through when the tsunami hit, perished. Weeks later, the scene of the wrecked carriages had become a scene of 'disaster tourism', where desperate villagers were relying on donations from curious passers-by. Above all, it seemed that no one in the village knew how to start reconstruction, and many remained afraid of a recurrence of the tsunami.

Due to our small presence in the country, and through our contacts in Singapore and abroad, we were then introduced to several organisations that were interested to place aid funds with us, to be used for longer term assistance in the area. Attracted by our proposal to build and run a permanent community medical centre in the village of Peraliya, the Deutsche Bank, Firmenich, Publicis Group, Abacus and other individuals then contributed. As a result, we formed a Sri Lanka based benevolent trust called Ruhunu Hospital Hamburg Trust, and resolved to build and run the centre, to become a focus of reconstruction in the village of Peraliya.

To read the complete article, get a copy of the 4Q 2009 edition at our online shop or at newsstands/major bookstores; or subscribe to FuturArc.

Table of Contents