Driving Forces

 

Leadership and management of the project



 

 

 

 

Leadership and management on German side are in the hands of Professor Wolf Dieter Gogoll (l.) and Hartmuth Schulz. Here together with the Sri Lankan Minister of Health, H.E. Maithripala Sirisena, January 2011.

 

Wolf Dieter Gogoll is representing 13 Hannover Lions Clubs, the project initiators, while Hartmuth Schulz is representing one of the sponsors, SOLVAY GmbH.



On medical side the project management is lying in hands of Dr. Thomas Jack, senior physian of Hannover Medical School (MHH). Here together with the team during the Sri Lanka visit in April 2010.

 

…read more about MHH’s contributions

From left: Bettina Buhr, PD Dr. Kathrin Seidemann, Dr.Thomas Jack, Hannah Tönsfeuerborn, quite recently extended by Claudia Heinemann



On Sri Lankan side we have various key persons and success drivers:



 

 

 

 

Mr. Nissanka Epaliyana has been delegated by the Lions Club of Hikkaduwa to supervise and manage all Tsunami projects.  He is so-to-say our extension at the spot. Among other issues he is the one who is taking care that the money will reach its intended targets. 



 

 

 

Dr. Pushpa Punchihewa – she is the  „inventor“ of the PICU-Idea: It was her who asked for the Lions’ help, since she, in her role as head of the paediatric wards of Karapitiya Hospital had witnessed helplessly that many, many children died only because no paediatric intensive treatment was at hand. After she introduced the first two beds in Karapitiya successfully the minister of health took her to Colombo, in order to supervise the quality of paediatric care countrywide.



 

 

 

 

 

Now Dr. Upeksha Liyanage, once Punchihewa´s scholar, an experienced paediatric consultant, is heading the PICU at Karapitiya Teaching Hospital; with great enthusiasm and energy. Of course she is today the most important partner for making the PICU vision and strategy real: Which is autonomy and self-propelled acting.



Since January 25, 2011 there is another structural component of PICU’s realization which might fuel the progress significantly: On occasion of our latest meeting with H.E. Maithripala Sirisena, the minister of health, we were able to convince him to install a Steering Committee. And he decided that it should be headed by Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, a medical doctor and a Member of Parliament representing the Galle region. From now on this Steering Committee should remove the stumbling blocks on PICU’s further development, namely to delegate sufficient numbers of qualified doctors and nurses into PICU, to procure pharmaceuticals for children care, to guarantee the budget for PICU, and as a more long-term issue to steer the process of rolling out what has been achieved in Galle all over the country. His dream be that each region should have its own PICU.



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