A ray of hope will come into the lives of Sri Lankan children with congenital heart defects when a top level surgical team from Guy’s Hospital London visits Sri Lanka from the 19th of April to the 28th of April 2002 to perform a series of life saving operations on underprivileged children mostly under 5 years old at National Hospital Sri Lanka.

Congenital heart defects are quite common among Sri Lankan children although lack of facilities gives the National Health Service very little opportunity to carry out surgical corrections. Therefore this visit by an expert surgical team would be of immense benefit not only to the patients concerned but also to the local medical fraternity who would gain much from the experience of the visiting team.

This charity project originated from an idea of Mr. Conal Austin, Consultant Paediactric Cardiac Surgeon at Guy’s Hospital - London. To help him in this mission the following experts will accompany him to Sri Lanka:

Dr. John Simpson - Consultant Cardiologist

Dr. Franco Muscuzzo - Consultant Anesthetist

Dr. Andrew Durwood - Consultant Intensivist

Mr. Jeff Fowler - Accredited Paediatric Perfusionist

Mr. Simon Smith - An Operating Department Practitioner

Three Intensive Care Theatre Sisters - Mrs. Muscuzzo, Jane Stanhouse, Tina Rintala.

Deserving children with complicated congenital heart defects will be selected by Dr. Mohan Jayathilake - Consultant Cardiologist and Dr. Y. K. M. Lahie - Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon. In this, they will be aided by Prof. Sanath Lamabadusuriya and the outstation consultants who will be referring cases to the local team for evaluation. Asha Central Hospital headed by Dr. Neville Fernando will act as the local coordinator while Mr. Jai Lameer who has been domiciled in the UK for the past 30 years has been heavily involved in the UK, end of this operation. Prof. Ravindra Fernando of the Colombo Medical Faculty has been instrumental in organising the local facilities.

Other senior Consultant Cardiologists, Dr. S. R. De Silva, Dr. Ruwan Ekenayake and Dr. Pramod Ranatunge from the Institute of Cardiologists in Colombo are making every effort to select the most deserving among the many neonates and children below 5 years with complicated cyanotic heart diseases for corrective surgery at this rare opportunity.

The Minister of Health P. Dayaratne and the Deputy Minister Sajith Premadasa have given their full blessings for the project and will assure the full co-operation of the Ministry of Health.

The benefits of this mission would be twofold. The first and most obvious benefit would be for the children undergoing surgery who would have the fortune of a world class surgical team operating on them. The more widespread benefit would be to the local medical fraternity who would get an invaluable hands-on training as well as a daily series of lectures and discussions on subjects ranging from cardiothoracic surgery to post operative nursing care.

Another long term aim of this project is to establish links with the Guy’s Hospital in London to promote the future training of local medical personnel at this prestigious hospital. It is hoped that this project will also stimulate the setting up of Paediatric Cardiac Surgery at Lady Ridgeway Hospital, the Premier Paediatric Hospital in the country.

Several foreign and local sponsors have come forward to help this worthy venture and many more would be required to make this mission a success. The organizers are thinking in terms of making this an ongoing process rather than single visit so that long term benefit would be the final result. A Web Site-mercymission.co.uk has been set up to facilitate the workings of this project.