HelpAge Sri Lanka renews support call for Mobile Clinics

HelpAge Sri Lanka is the only NGO providing leadership in improving the lives of the elderly. In its 25 years of operation in Sri Lanka, HelpAge has been instrumental in raising awareness on the issues faced by the elderly. Its achievements include providing health and eye care, training volunteers for home care, youth education on caring for senior citizens, assisting in establishing senior citizen committees, empowering senior citizens by providing livelihood assistance, etc.,

HelpAge Sri Lanka’s flagship program is its mobile medical unit. Created with the objective of reaching elders living in areas with limited basic medical care, the mobile medical unit travels to some of Sri Lanka’s most remote locations with a cadre of dedicated doctors, nurses and orderlies.  The mobile medical unit, a bus, includes a pharmacy as well as a ready supply of free spectacles and is able to treat about 150 to 175 persons a day at no cost to all those treated. Upon reaching the intended location, the doctor provides consultation for elders mainly concentrating on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and other pressing medical issues and issue prescriptions or spectacles to the elders most in need.

Tilak de Zoysa, Chairman – HelpAge International and HelpAge Sri Lanka, explained, “Thousands of elderly Sri Lankans suffer needlessly because they lack access to basic medical care. Our mobile medical unit project aims to tackle this project head-on. The medical team who travel in the mobile medical unit assess the physical condition of the elderly in remote parts of Sri Lanka, offering them medical advice as well as prescription drugs.”

The cost of operating this mobile medical unit is borne entirely by HelpAge Sri Lanka. “Each trip costs about Rs. 70,000. HelpAge Sri Lanka engages with stakeholders across Sri Lankan society to make the running of the mobile medical unit possible. Our culture is one where we respect elders for the various roles they have played during their lifetime. By donating to HelpAge Sri Lanka, Sri Lankans can help provide leadership in meeting the needs of the elderly citizens.”

During 2011, HelpAge Sri Lanka conducted 192 mobile medical unit camps across Sri Lanka, treating 14,378 elders, identified 3165 elders to receive cataract operations, and provided 8647 elders with free spectacles.

HelpAge Sri Lanka was established in 1986 following the first World Assembly on Ageing, held in Vienna four years before. The organisation’s initial services and programs were developed on recommendations of the World Assembly, followed by the United Nations Principles on older person’s namely independence, participation, care, self-fulfilment and dignity declared in 1991. These programs were further adjusted in keeping with other UN conventions like the International Year of Older Persons 1999 and Madrid International plan of Action in 2002.  Today, HelpAge is at the forefront of developing policies in keeping with the recommendations of the second World Assembly on Ageing held in Madrid.