Category Archives: medical marvels
Effrontery …. or Bust !!!
Filed under accountability, Al Qaeda, art & allure bewitching, asylum-seekers, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, energy resources, female empowerment, fundamentalism, gender norms, governance, growth pole, landscape wondrous, life stories, medical marvels, performance, psychological urges, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, wild life, world affairs, zealotry
BEAP Hospital rises from Tsunami Ashes in Batticaloa Locality
SPECIAL FOREWORD: The Timeless Classics Concert raised $35,000 in net returns to the Foundation. We are planning to repeat the concert in Colombo at the time the newly elected Rotary International Director visits Sri Lanka in November 2017. The event will be organised by two Rotary Clubs in Colombo spearheaded by our own Trustee, Rotarian Indrajith Fernando. The artistes have agreed to donate their services and their talent to help us raise funding for the hospital.
Memo from Nihal De Run
Dear Members of our Project Interest Group,
These pictures were taken during a site visit on 6th April 2017. We were thrilled to see the progress and the sheer size of the super structure. The contractor CECB is confident of finishing on schedule, 15th November 2017 but I would add another six weeks for the prospect of rain, material delays and so forth.
The SL Army Medical Corps and Its Services at the Battlefront
Maj Gen Sanjeewa Munasinghe, RWP RSP USP … being a Presentation at the Defence Seminar entitled “Defeating Terrorism,” held at the Galadari Hotel in Colombo between 31st May 2011 to 2nd June 2011 …. with a NOTE by Michael Roberts clarifying the context at the end of the Speech
A medical Division in taking care of the injured and meeting their medical needs, boosts the morale and confidence of the troops. The Sri Lanka Army Medical Corps is a relatively small Division and by 2006 there were only 118 officers and 3200 men of which only a small proportion could be employed in the field. In order to address this problem, a group of infantrymen from each regiment were trained as nursing assistants in the combat life support training course. This extended to all special force personnel, commandos and young medical officers. In addition, all medical officers, nurses and paramedics of the corps were given ample training in handling and managing victims of chemical exposure. At the start of the operation, all male nurses, nursing assistants and medical officers in static Military Hospitals were mobilised to operational and non-operational areas in the field. The Ministry of Health provided civil medical officers, nurses and additional surgical teams to assist in the operation and strengthen army base hospitals.
Treating civilian casualties –– http://www.defence.lk/picturegallery/picc.asp?tfile=20090121&cat=DUTY
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, communal relations, female empowerment, governance, landscape wondrous, law of armed conflict, life stories, LTTE, medical marvels, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Sri Lanka leads World in Path to Eliminate Malaria
Sarah Boseley, in The Guardian Weekly, 22 September 2016, where the title reads “Beginning of the End for Malaria,” ... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/09/malaria-sri-lanka-china-iran-malaysia-end-for-disease
Hopes of eliminating malaria from more than 30 countries with a total population of 2 billion have risen following the successful removal of the disease from Sri Lanka. Public health officials said 13 countries, including Argentina and Turkey, had reported no cases for at least a year and may well follow the success of Sri Lanka, which this week declared itself malaria-free after meeting the criterion of going three years without an infection. By the end of the decade, another 21 countries, including China, Malaysia and Iran, could be free of the disease, which kills 400,000 people, mostly babies and pregnant women, every year.
Public health officials believe that in years to come the elimination from Sri Lanka, highly symbolic because the island came within a hair’s breadth of defeating malaria more than 50 years ago, may be regarded as the beginning of the end for the disease.
A Sri Lankan worker fumigates buildings to control mosquitoes in Colombo. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP
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Rathika Pathmanathan Face-to-Face and Woman-to-Woman
Frances Bulathsinghala, courtesy of Daily FT, 5 October 2016, where the title reads “Facing the past, bridging the divide” ... with emphasis inblue highlghts added by the Editor, Thuppahi.
The life of 25-year-old Rathika Pathmanathan is a testimony of a post-war nation at the crossroads. She has lived the hideous gore of war, bloodied trenches and is now living the possibilities of peace. She has dared to trust and she has dared to forgive. In her book ‘There is a Darkness Called Light and I Grope for Myself in the Thick of It,’ published in English, Sinhala and Tamil, recounts her days as a teenaged fighter in the LTTE frontlines of the last phase of the war; the nights and days of starvation in the trenches, the excruciating combat training, the loss of family and the new world of Colombo where she arrived for medical treatment for the leg she almost lost. Seated in the small, sparsely-furnished room she occupies on rent in a remote Sinhala majority suburb in the outer periphery of Colombo, Rathika speaks of wanting to rebuild her life, to study and most of all to actively work towards reconciliation in Sri Lanka, a task she is engaged in at present through her book and as an activist.
Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, ethnicity, heritage, Indian religions, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, medical marvels, meditations, patriotism, plural society, politIcal discourse, press freedom, reconciliation, rehabilitation, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, trauma, unusual people, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions, world events & processes
Mahinda Rajapaksa meets “The Hindu” in July 2009
I. Preamble by Michael Roberts
I was in Colombo from mid-April 2009 to early June and observed the local coverage of Eelam War IV at its bitter end. I was invited by Muralidhar Reddy[i] to write articles for Frontline on aspects of the politics surrounding the war. Though Frontline is a magazine produced by The Hindu consortium, I was not a regular follower of that newspaper on web — even though I had once been introduced to its owner and chief executive, N. Ram, way back in time by Chandra Schafter and had also had an extended chat with him in Delhi in 1995.[ii]
N Ram talking to Mahinda Rajapaksa, mid-2009 
Thus the receipt of a Hindu report on President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s thoughts in mid-2009, expressed in an extended session with him conducted by N. Ram, serves up new material from my position. In step with my policy of raising significant episodes in the course of Eelam War IV to public notice,[iii] I hasten to place this exchange in the public domain. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, communal relations, disaster relief team, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, IDP camps, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, medical marvels, military strategy, modernity & modernization, nationalism, NGOs, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, rehabilitation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
Tigress Rathika Pathmanathan’s Turbulent Journey, 2006-16
Zahrah Imtiaz, in Daily News, 16 August 2016, where the title is “Rathika–A Succcess Story”
At 23, Rathika Pathmanathan has borne many names; orphan, LTTE combatant, Ex-LTTE combatant, call centre girl and finally writer and activist. Her journey has been long and arduous and as she stood in a crowded auditorium at the OPA, for the launch of her maiden book of narrative stories and poems in Tamil, ‘There is a darkness called light and I grope for myself in the thick of it’ (with Sinhala and English translations), last week, she stood as a testament to what successful rehabilitation needed to be.
Rathika Pathmanathan
“This book is an honest declaration of my feelings and thoughts during and after the war. It bears the scars of that time,”she said and added that it was a project undertaken to record the sufferings of the people who went through the war. “I am surprised at the courage I have gained to be able to speak before a large gathering today. A few years ago, I did not know a word of Sinhala, we didn’t know what ‘Kauda’ (who are you?) meant. I was depressed and had no one to talk to and as I lay in hospital in Colombo, I started to write poetry.
“As I kept writing, I felt more relieved and empowered, so I kept writing. The writing calmed me down. This book helped me get out of depression and learn to live a better life,” she explained. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, ethnicity, female empowerment, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, medical marvels, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, tolerance, unusual people, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Topless: Devastating! Striking! Alluring! et cetera et cetera
Filed under accountability, commoditification, doctoring evidence, growth pole, landscape wondrous, medical marvels, performance, photography, psychological urges, pulling the leg, Responsibility to Protect or R2P, slanted reportage, taking the piss, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, trauma, unusual people, world affairs
A Marvellous Medical Breakthrough: A 3D Printed Vertebrae inserted in Australia
Conor Duffy, courtesy of ABC News, 22 February 2016, with title “Australian surgeon inserts 3D-printed vertebrae in world-first”
An Australian neurosurgeon has completed a world-first marathon surgery removing cancer-riddled vertebrae and successfully replacing them with a 3D-printed body part. Ralph Mobbs conducted the mammoth 15-hour operation in December and 7.30 has been tracking his patient Drage Josevski’s progress since then. At the time of the operation it was not known if Mr Josevski would survive the procedure.
