Ceylinco Life donates piped oxygen distribution system to Matale District General Hospital

Ceylinco Life directors, senior management and hospital representatives at the ceremony

Ceylinco Life Managing Director/CEO Thushara Ranasinghe (left) presents the official documentation of the oxygen distribution system to Hospital Director Dr. A.G.M.M. Dharmadasa  

An uninterrupted supply of life-saving oxygen is now reaching nearly 300 beds at the Matale District General Hospital, thanks to a community initiative of Ceylinco Life.

Sri Lanka’s life insurance market leader has invested Rs. 12.3 million to build a pipe network that connects the hospital’s central oxygen concentrator with the wards, eliminating the cumbersome, time-consuming and costly practice of re-filling cylinders and transporting them to wards across the 22-acre compound.

As a result of this project, the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and other wards are now self-sufficient in oxygen, leading to a significant improvement in the quality of treatment, while the hospital’s oxygen concentrator is expected to reach maximum utilisation.

Ceylinco Life also presented essential medicines to the value worth over Rs. 500,000 at the ceremony at which the new oxygen distribution system was formally handed over to the hospital.

Ceylinco Life Chairman R. Renganathan said: “Our Company has always shared its success with its stakeholders. The general public is one such stakeholder. Sri Lanka has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and any citizen can seek medical care free of charge. Naturally, there are cost implications and challenges. We are aware that many hospitals do not have every item of equipment that they need. Ceylinco Life has made numerous contributions over the years to the Government healthcare system as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility program.”

Thanking Ceylinco Life for its generous contributions to the Matale District General Hospital, the hospital’s Director Dr. A.G.M.M. Dharmadasa emphasised the importance of treatment at the “golden hour” for patients, and elaborated on how this initiative will enable the hospital to provide better treatment to patients in a critical condition.

Among Ceylinco Life’s many contributions to the state healthcare sector are the donation of purpose-built and fully-equipped High Dependency Units (HDUs) to the Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila, the National Hospital, Colombo, the Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital, the Jaffna Teaching Hospital and the Kandy Teaching Hospital. HDUs are needed to upgrade a patient from normal care or as a step down from intensive care, helping release beds in the intensive care units. These units are used for post-surgery care, before transferring patients to the wards, or to treat an intensive disease.

Matale Hospital, one of the oldest hospitals in Sri Lanka, was established in 1847 near Fort McDowell by the British Army for its use. Today, it is the main hospital for Matale’s 530,000 (2021) residents and those in surrounding villages bordering Kandy, Kurunegala and Dambulla. The hospital admits 7000 patients monthly, and treats about 500 patients at its clinics and provides OPD services to between 900 and 1,000 patients per day.