Achievements

Establishment of Emergency Treatment Unit (ETU) at the OPD, De Soysa Hospital for Women (DMH) - 25/08/2021

The De Soysa Hospital for Women (Teaching) is a premier hospital in Sri Lanka for Obstetrics and Gynaecology, located very close to the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL). It receives nearly 15,000 admissions (Obstetric & Gynaecology patients) per year, including emergency and non-emergency cases. Initially when a cardiac arrest occurs patient was immediately transferred to the nearby casualty theatre for emergency management. However, during the covid pandemic an emergency case, sent to the relevant casualty ward and an emergency management was done there. As there were various issues occur when the patient was transferred to different casualty wards in order to overcome the problems, a well-equipped emergency treatment unit (ETU) was established at the OPD. After the establishment of the fully equipped ETU in 2021, emergency treatments are given immediately on admission, and it improves the quality and safety of emergency patient care.

An establishment of a new covid ward complex in De Soysa Maternity Hospital for Women (Teaching)

“A People’s Gift to the People”

Since 10^th March 2020, the first Sri Lankan local national tested positive for COVID-19 up to date, there were varying number of Covid-19 cases reported in the country. When the delta wave of Covid-19 which was more serious than any other occurrence embraces the country, an enormous fear generated among both patients & staff. In this context, the number of pregnant mothers getting infected with Covid-19, started to raise in De Soysa Maternity Hospital (DMH) as well. When the number of patients admitted with Covid-19 is more than the allocated bed capacity, resulted in increasing the number of floor patients. It is a well-known fact that all the pregnant mothers should be given an appropriate care and comfort out of which an expected comfort is doubtful under the aforesaid situation for the floor patients. ("Floor patients can be described as those patients who have not received a bed in the hospital"). At the same time there are some serious instances where babies are kept in the cots and mothers stay in another ward away from the babies.

The staff of DMH exert very much in order to provide optimum care to the patients of DMH. As a result, the staff infection rate has increased tremendously. Unexpectedly, when a positive test result of a staff member was informed, he/she would be in trouble until an accommodation is provided elsewhere in the country to receive care for the illness acquired. The reason is that there is no identified location in the DMH premises to admit staff patients. Therefore, it was suggested to allocate a few beds for staff members in the new ward complex in order to pay for the immeasurable services they rendered so that they would feel homely and comfortable.

Some pictures taken before the commencement of the construction work

Considering the aforesaid situation, the Covid Steering Committee of DMH decided to refurbish a very old, abandoned building and develop a ward complex to patients and staff infected with Covid 19. This was a newly acquired building adjacent to the hospital premises which was initially utilized by the Ministry of Health for some other purpose. Director decided to carry out the work with donations, thinking not to burden the Ministry of Health requesting to provide funding. She sooner appointed a Donation Coordination Committee to deal with donors. The committee consisted of a few Clinicians in the hospital and the Administrative Officer. The committee systematically matched the donors items with the list of requirements of the infrastructure and equipment. The donor was asked to deal directly with the agents for providing items. The whole process was monitored and maintain the transparency throughout by the Director. The support of labour was provided by the Sri-Lanka Army throughout the project. To ensure the safety of the old building, a report was obtained by the National Building Research Organization (NBRO) at the Ministry of Security and Disaster Management and also verified whether the building is included in the registers of the Archeology Department.

The objectives of the new building construction were to increase the bed capacity in the hospital to provide in-house care and comfort to pregnant mothers and babies infected with Covid-19 and also to provide optimum in-house care and comfort to staff members who are infected with Covid-19.

Establishment of Police post - 01/12/2021

The De Soysa Hospital for Women is established in the central business district of Colombo, where the crime rate is a little higher when compared with the other areas of the country. It was noted that there were security issues around the hospital that caused disturbances to the patients as well as the staff. Considering the maternal patients, neonates & staff security of the hospital, a hospital security committee was formed by the Director & the the first meeting was held on 28/09/2021. Since then regular security meetings were held to strengthen the security of the hospital. At the same time, the security was strengthened further by establishing a police post on the 01/12/2021. It provide services 24/7 of the whole year.