Ceylinco Life donates High Dependency Unit to Kalubowila Hospital

The Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila – the second largest government hospital in the Colombo District – has received a fully-equipped High Dependency Unit (HDU) from life insurance leader Ceylinco Life.

Ceylinco Life Managing Director R. Renganathan (above, left) declares open the HDU (below) at the Kalubowila Teaching Hospital in the presence of senior doctors.

Located in Ward 24, the HDU has four ICU beds, six syringe pumps, two infusion pumps, a patient warmer, a blood or fluid warmer, two DVT pumps, a piped medical gas system for the four beds, two portable ventilators, four cardiac monitors and a central monitoring station.

Its role is to provide intensive post-surgery care for recuperating patients before they are transferred to regular wards. 

Constructed and equipped by Ceylinco Life at a cost of Rs. 11.75 million, the unit was donated by the company as a community initiative. It is the fourth such unit donated by Ceylinco Life to a government hospital.

Commenting on this generous donation by Ceylinco Life, Colombo South Teaching Hospital Director Dr Asela Gunawardene said: “This unit serves a long-felt need at this hospital. It will significantly increase the quality of post-operative care given to patients, without compromising on the attention needed by patients in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.”

The opening ceremony of the HDU at the Kalubowila Teaching hospital was attended by Directors and senior managers of Ceylinco Life, Dr Gunawardene, Head of the Department of Surgery of the Surgical Unit of the Sri Jayewardenepura University Professor Deepaka Weerasekara and Professor Aloka Pathirana of the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Sri Jayawardanapura. 

Past donations of this nature by Ceylinco Life include a sophisticated High Dependency and Research Unit to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) in 2012, exclusively for the treatment of children afflicted by Dengue, in partnership with a group of well-wishers; an HDU to the National Hospital of Sri Lanka in 2013; and a Dengue High Dependency Unit in 2014 to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. 

Ceylinco Life has also made several donations of essential equipment to other hospitals, including the Trincomalee General Hospital.

Additionally, the company conducts a series of free health camps under its community program ‘Waidya Hamuwa’ which has benefitted over 135,000 people in the past 15 years. Held in towns and villages across the country, these camps provide free medical examinations by a team of travelling doctors and offer necessary diagnostic tests such as random blood sugar, ECG and blood pressure. Attendees also receive optical check-ups for free.

In the area of education, Ceylinco Life is committed to supporting the development of educational infrastructure for underprivileged schools in rural areas. This consists principally of building classroom blocks for schools and providing water supply facilities to those in need. To date, the company has donated classrooms to 70 schools under this program.

Adjudged Sri Lanka’s Best Life Insurer in 2017 for the fourth consecutive year by World Finance, Ceylinco Life has been the market leader in Sri Lanka’s life insurance sector since 2004 and has close to a million lives covered by active policies. The company is acknowledged as the benchmark for innovation in the local insurance industry for its work in product research and development, customer service, professional development and corporate social responsibility.