SLIC ‘Call to Donate’ project receives enormous response

• Aims to contribute ‘Renal Replacement Therapy’ machine, prosthetic limbs and medicine to paediatric oncology unit

By Fathima Riznaz Hafi

The ‘Call to Donate’ project has been successfully launched for the second time, drawing enormous response from the public. Initially launched last year by Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC), Call to Donate is a novel concept whereby the public is invited to give a missed call to the hotline (1357) and for every missed call received SLIC makes a contribution of Rs. 10 to a special fund that was set up to provide assistance to cancer patients in the Paediatric Oncology unit of the Maharagama National Cancer Institute.

“Our project last year was a very successful one; we were targeting 350,000 missed calls and we achieved that target, following which we contributed Rs. 3.5 million to the fund. From that amount, Rs. 775,000 was invested in a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine for patients who suffer from sleep apnoea. The CPAP machine serves to ease the patients’ breathing while they sleep as sometimes their airways collapse in their sleep. It was a good supportive system and the cancer hospital never had this sort of machine before the donation,” said SLIC Joint Managing Director Keith Bernard at a press meet last week. 

Another Rs. 1.8 million was used to supply prosthetic limbs for children who had lost their limbs to this illness and couldn’t afford prosthetic limbs. The rest of the money was used to provide essential medicine to the paediatric ward.

Although donating the CPAP machine was the main goal, their contribution was not confined to one item alone. “Putting things into context, with the Rs. 3.5 million allotted last year, the CPAP machine only cost Rs. 775,000; the prosthetic limbs cost much more – in fact almost double that cost, at Rs. 1.8 million. So we work around one machine but we would similarly make contributions towards other remedies that are required by the hospital,” Bernard told the Daily FT. 

“This project may seem like a small deed but it has had a strong effect on the whole community; it has created awareness, enthusiasm and momentum for more people to gather around this cause. It did not require any financial commitment from the caller but instead a minute of their time to make the call thus enabling them to be a part of the cause,” he added. 

Motivated by the response received last year, SLIC decided to run it this year as well and launched the project on 1 November. “This year we expected 500,000 missed calls and planned to carry it out through the entire month of November but I’m happy to announce that we have almost reached that target within the course of less than two weeks. The enthusiasm shown by the public was enormous and we wish to thank them for that.

“Again we will contribute Rs. 10 for each missed call and altogether at the end of the project we plan to contribute Rs. 5 million and this time we are looking at a machine which is not available in hospitals – the ‘Renal Replacement Therapy’ machine. The machine will aid critically ill cancer patients at the National Cancer Institute by supporting their kidney functions. We will also contribute prosthetic limbs and essential medicine to the paediatric ward, as was done last year.”

“We try to live by the Sri Lanka Insurance tagline of ‘Like a father – Like a mother’, often going beyond that and contributing towards social causes; we have contributed towards sports, culture and religion – always to national causes,” he said.

Cancer is a broad area and SLIC placed their focus on a specific area to work on; they chose the paediatric ward as they were informed that a lot of the cancers there are curable – with the correct medication and treatment their young lives can be saved and they can lead normal lives. 

SLIC worked very closely with doctors and nurses, visiting the cancer hospital a few times and found out what was needed and acted accordingly. “Also utilising the expertise of Lanka Hospitals to learn what is essentially needed by the cancer patients, we identified what kind of medication is lacking and found out that following chemotherapy some of them lose their limbs and that’s how we found out that prosthetic limbs were badly needed. These are the things we identified from last year’s project,” he said. 

Commending the support received from Paediatric Oncologist Dr. Damayanthi Pieris, Bernard said the advice and expertise she shared with them went a long way in helping them carry out their mission. 

The project will be carried out throughout the month of November and the hotline is still open for the public to share a moment of their time in support of this cause by making the missed call.