(COLOMBO, LANKAPUVATH) – The Government of Japan has provided a grant of US$ 36,759 (approx. Rs. 7.2 million) through the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP) for the provision of “Reconditioned Ambulances for the Moolai Co-operative Hospital”, the Japanese Embassy in Colombo said.
The grant contract was signed by Ambassador of Japan Akira Sugiyama and M. Gnaneswaran, President of the Co-operative Hospital Society Ltd, Moolai on 24th March 2021 at the Ambassador’s Residence in Colombo.
The Moolai Co-operative hospital was established in 1936 as the first hospital in South-east Asia managed by the Co-operative Society. The hospital since then has been meeting various medical needs of patients primarily from the Western part of the Jaffna district, serving a population of approximately 200,000 people in total.
Though some of the facilities damaged by the civil war have been restored, a large portion of these ancillary services remained unattended. As such, meeting the medical needs of this community have proven to be a massive task. In fact, there was only one old ambulance in service, donated by a hospital in 2007, thus, carrying out emergency services and mobile clinics efficiently had been a huge challenge.
This project, which donates two reconditioned ambulances (one is for emergency purpose and the other for mobile clinic services) from Japan, is expected to improve emergency and mobile clinic services in the region significantly.
