Intensive care facility for children with severe COVID
The university paediatric unit, Teaching Hospital Karapitiya, renovated a separate room for children with COVID-19 who need intensive care. The room was opened on 1st July 2021 as a non-ceremonial event. Professor Sujeewa Amarasena, Vice-chancellor of the University of Ruhuna and Dr Shelton Perera, the director, Teaching Hospital, Karapitiya and Professor Vasantha Devasiri, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, inaugurated the room and paediatricians in THK gathered to grace the occasion. Dr Aruna De Silva, Senior Lecturer, Department of Paediatrics, coordinated the project and organized the opening event. The sponsors for the project were Mr Athil Goonasekara, Mr Aruna Hewawasam, Mr Kalana Manawadu, Dr Hemamali Senevirathne and Harischandra mills.
Previously, no particular place was designed for children with severe COVID 19 in the Teaching Hospital Karapitiya. Therefore, children who need intensive care facilities must admit to a common intensive care unit shared with adult patients or transfer to Lady Ridgeway Hospital. The newly renovated room helped to fill this vacuum. The room was previously used as an isolation room in the ward without any intensive care facilities.
There is a capacity to give ventilator care for one patient, and the facilities are there for the bystanders of sick children. In addition, there is a portable paediatric ventilator worth 2.0 million placed inside the premises, and it will be shared by the paediatric intensive care unit and paediatric accident and emergency department.
Since intensive care facilities are scarce in the country, the university paediatric unit's long-term plan is to utilise this room to provide care to all critically ill children from Southern Sri Lanka until they find a proper ICU bed.
