To all concerned: We hope to send/take the first delivery of emergency relief to Vavuniya Hospital on Friday. We have focused on Crutches, Medicines and Mattresses. We have raised 250 crutches. We have also gathered various quantities of basic medicines, though more is needed.
We need to raise 100 mattresses (Our price from Arpico is Rs.2,750 per mattress), if we could each buy one and/or get our friends to do the same, we will have enough. Pls contact us if you can you can donate to this.
Medicine: Sarika will be purchasing medicine this week, as per list on page 11. If you wish to donate, please contact her or use the contact form here. Or buy the medicines and give to us.
We hope to take 3 lorries across on Friday evening. ACT representatives will accompany the delivery. If you are free to travel, please contact me.
Attached is the new and updated proposal. Please use it to appeal for donations. Just on private donations (rather than corporate), we will have enough to take across.
These are some of the medical supplies we’re attempting to purchase. Please contact us if you can donate or would be able to supply some of these items.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY RELIEF ITEMS TO BE PURCHASED:
SURGICAL GLOVES
BANDAGES – COTTON & CREPE
SPLINTS
- Wooden are available locally
- Fibreglass are better but have to be imported
PAINKILLERS
- Morphine
- Pethadine
- Dichlofenac (Volteron)
- Tramadol
ANTI-BIOTICS
- Ciprofloxocin
- Co-Amoxiclav
(Both are available at Osu-Sala at very cheap prices for bulk amounts)
SALINE
DEXTROSE
SYRINGES + NEEDLES
ORAL REHYDRATION SALTS (Jeevani)
Professor A. H. Sherifdeen, a very senior surgeon in Sri Lanka who has devoted a lifetime to helping sick and impoverished Sri Lankans has joined the Trust as Chairman. The Professor was former President of the Sri Lanka College of Surgeons and a former President of Sri Lanka Medical Association. He continues to work and operate at public and private hospitals in Colombo and advises the Ministry of Health.
He is currently sending doctors every week to the areas we hope to reach. He has given us a list of vital emergency treatment medicines that can be purchased locally.
Sri Lanka’s civil war has taken its toll on all of us, be it personally, economically or distantly. When the tsunami happened, the private sector worked tirelessly to provide relief to those that needed it most. We at ACT wish to inspire a similar response and ask that all Sri Lankans come together to protect and care for our weak and helpless.
History will judge the politics, policies, politicians and terrorists. History will not help the children who are crawling on their stomachs because they don’t have crutches.
It is time to try, harder than ever before, to help those who cannot help themselves. The real victims, not just the displaced but those who have suffered permanent injury and have lost hope of peace and prosperity.
This Trust was formed specifically as a result of the tremendous response we received not just from our friends but from complete strangers, all of whom heard the call to action.
The time to ACT is now.
How can you help?
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as well as the UN confirm that the LTTE are using civilians as human shields.
With only 28km of land area currently controlled by the LTTE, anyone of a fighting age is forcibly recruited into the LTTE and civilians attempting to flee are being shot, chased and often killed.
Only those that are of no use to the LTTE, the severely injured, the children and the elderly are allowed to leave and even then, only when they have managed to flee and reach the ICRC boat loading area.
Before being loaded onto a boat, a medical decision (Triage) is made as to whether each civilian can survive the journey. Those that are determined high risk are left to die.
The ICRC are, under instruction of the State, now bringing boats ashore in Pulmoddai, from the conflict zone. These boats arrive every few days and carry approximately 480 civilians.
Of those civilians arriving via ICRC boats, a third are seriously injured, a third have relatively minor injuries and the remaining third are bystanders accompanying the injured.
Civilian arrivals are registered, tagged and treated by the Indian & Sri Lankan doctors at Pulmodai Field Hospital. Later, some patients (with bystanders) are transferred to Padaviya Hospital and some stay overnight and then transferred. Those that arrive with no injury and not accompanying any injured are transferred to Padaviya for overnight stay.
Once emergency medical treatment is provided and patients are stabilized, the injured fit enough for travel are then dispatched to Vavuniya Hospital.
ACT has been informed by the authorities that Vavuniya Hospital currently has capacity to treat 300 patients but has 900+ at present, mostly amputees that are immobile.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) has agreed to allow ACT representatives to transport relief items to Vavuniya Hospital.
World Concern, an INGO that has access to the Pulmoddai receiving point, is in need of supplies and have a network in place that can effectively manage distribution of relief to the injured civilians.
World Concern are on hand when civilians are being tagged and registered. They greet them with welfare packs to help adjust to new surroundings. Where patients are taken straight to surgery, World Concern follows their progress, making sure no one is left out of their donation mechanism.
ACT will work with World Concern and support their emergency relief strategy by way of collection of goods.
ACT representatives will personally deliver medical supplies to Vavuniya Hospital, with MOH and Ministry of Defense approval.
We ask the Sri Lankan private sector to support this Initiative in any way possible.
