Little Hearts Project of Lady Ridgeway Hospital

Photo: Lakshman Abeyagunawardene

Photo: Lakshman Abeyagunawardene

"Little drops of water

Little grains of sand

Make the mighty ocean 

and the pleasant land"

It is quite well known now, that I have never used the Batch Blog for fund raising, propaganda, politics etc. In fact, I have had occasion to politely turn down a couple of contributions from members of our batch on such grounds. It is to their credit that they accepted my decision in good spirit without any form of misunderstanding. So, let me reiterate that the sole purpose of this post is to highlight the efforts of our colleague Sanath Lamabadusuriya. I have also steered clear of copyright issues. Not wanting to take a chance by downloading photos from the Internet, I drove to Galle Face on Sunday evening when the roads are almost deserted, to combine my evening walk with a "photo shoot" with my modest  camera. I selected two from my own shots of the mighty ocean and the fast changing Colombo skyline to be used as visuals for this post.

As you can see from the following string of e-mail correspondence with a circle of his friends, Sanath is doing his bit to raise funds for the Little Hearts Project of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital. His friendship with Dr. T. L. Chambers, the eminent Consultant Paediatrician of UK dates back to the time in the late 1980s when both of them were Co - examiners at the MD examination held in Sri Lanka. Later, Dr. Chambers had come several times to Sri Lanka for the same examination and for the Annual Sessions of the College of Paediatricians. On one occasion, Sanath had examined with Dr. Chambers in Portsmouth at the MRCP UK clinical exam as well. Both happen to be ardent cricket fans!

The Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians is closely involved with this project. Sanath is the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

In keeping with my policy of not exposing e-mail addresses wherever possible to keep away phishers, I have deleted all e-mail addresses.

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Professor Sanath P. Lamabadusuriya	09:53 (45 minutes ago)
to bcc: me

i---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Professor Sanath P. Lamabadusuriya
Date: 22 September 2017 at 09:50
Subject: Re: Little Hearts Project - Lady Ridgeway Hospital Colombo
To: "Dr. T. L. Chambers"

Dear Tim,

Thank you very much for supporting the Little Hearts project. Your generous contribution is greatly appreciated by all of us. It is indeed a pity that Kumar decided to retire from international cricket and deprive us from witnessing his exploits on the cricket  field.

Kind regards,

Sanath

On 21 September 2017 at 17:19, Dr. T. L. Chambers wrote:

Sanath,

I have sent a modest donation to mark the many kindnesses I have received in Sri Lanka. (Also to mark the wonderful batting of Kumar Sangakkara I witnessed yesterday at the OvalGG.

Kind regards,

Tim

---

From: Professor Sanath P. Lamabadusuriya
Sent: 13 September 2017 07:05:25
To: XXXXXXXX
Subject: Little Hearts Project - Lady Ridgeway Hospital Colombo

Dear friends,

When I was working at LRH,I carried out an audit regarding causes of death in my unit. Infections was the leading cause closely followed by congenital heart disease ( CHD). CHD accounted for 25% to 35% of deaths every year. Majority of these deaths could have been prevented if facilities were available.

Every year 3000 children are born with CHD..Eight out of every 1000 children are lost before their first birthday.

Little Hearts project is a dream with the vision of securing the ability to treat 10,000 babies born with CHD every year and prevent 1500 unnecessary deaths..Once the facility is established  it would  provide 100% free of charge medical services to children from all parts of Sri Lanka. It is a project approved by the Ministry of Health. Total amount of funds required is Rs. 2 billion . So far Rs. 175 million has been raised. My daughter Dilusha, who is residing in Norwich, UK ran a Sri Lankan food festival recently and raised over Rs, 500,000.00 for the project. My appeal to you is to contribute in whatever way for the project so as to save precious little lives .Majority of parents of these poor children do not have lobbying power and therefore it is our duty to do it on their behalf. 

I have attached some relevant documents as well.

Kind regards,

Sanath

Blog Administrator's note: The documents referred to are not posted. Viewers who wish to see them may contact Sanath directly.