Nawaloka Hospital launches Transplant Centre

Sri Lanka’s private healthcare pioneer Nawaloka Hospital has established a Transplant Centre, which has already carried out live donor liver and live donor lung transplants locally. This makes it the first and only private sector healthcare centre to carry out live donor liver and live donor lung transplants in Sri Lanka.

Further, while the hospital has already carried out a number of successful kidney transplants, and even first-in-Sri Lanka live donor liver and lung transplants, the next step for the Nawaloka Hospital Transplant Centre is to acquire the necessary expertise to expand its range of highly specialised medical services to include gallbladder, pancreas and bone marrow transplants. It will also soon open a dedicated Transplant Centre wing where key services, such as a Transplant Intensive Care Unit, will be available in the same place.

However, it must be noted that Nawaloka Hospital’s name is already well-established in the annals of local transplants history, with the hospital being the first to perform private sector kidney transplants in Sri Lanka, in the year 1988. And members of that inaugural transplants team continue to be a part of the Transplant Centre even today, offering unmatched expertise to help transplant recipients lead a normal life.

Additionally, current transplant recipients have added advantages, such as dedicated intensive care services, which specifically cater to transplant patients with much desired one-on-one nursing capabilities, etc., and state-of-the-art operating theatres with Laminar Air Flow ventilation that ensures sterility which minimises the post-operative infections.

The hospital’s Director/General Manager Prof. Lal Chandrasena said: “One of the first aspects of Nawaloka Hospital’s Transplant Centre is the fact that the Transplant Coordinator’s office brings in expertise from the most talented transplant surgeons in Sri Lanka today, which upholds our promise of bringing to bear only the most experienced team. This is also backed by the hospital’s 20 years of, mostly successful, transplants.”

He added: “Another important capability of our Transplant Centre, which only we offer, is the high level of personalised care. Our transplant coordination team is on call 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week and the help they give is not just limited to answering questions about the transplants themselves, but they also help with guiding them, obtaining financial assistance from institutions like the President’s Fund, the ETF, etc. – anything the patient needs for a faster cure.”  

With more than 400 beds and 600 visiting medical consultants, Nawaloka Hospital is the largest local private hospital in a single location, which is also the country’s first fully fledged private healthcare institution, opened in 1985 with only 100 beds. The hospital was responsible for the well-being of over 1.5 million patients in total during the 2011/2012 period, during which it also carried out close to 15,000 surgeries.