Canadian paramedics donate medical equipment to North

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 November 2003, 05:18 GMT]
The Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Unit in Toronto, Canada, has donated medical equipment and medicine used in emergency surgery, worth 30 million Rupees, to the government hospitals in Vavuniya, Mannar and Kilinochchi, sources said.

Members of the Swiss demining group, F.S.D, the Humanitarian Demining Unit (HDU), and the Indian demining groups, Sarvothra and Horizon, were given 2 weeks of training in emergency surgery, said Mr. Bala, the national planning officer of the F.S.D.

The donated equipment include CAT scanners, patients’ beds, carts, emergency equipment such as saline drip stand, children’s beds and freezers.

The EMS has also donated a consignment of clothes (uniforms) for the deminers. The Canadian group's donation is a result of the efforts of the officer in charge of demining in Vavuniya for the United Nations’ Development Plan (UNDP), Ms. Leonie Barnes, sources said.

Meanwhile, the EMS has also donated 200,000 Rupees for the construction a new building for students at the Koolankulam school in Vavuniya.

Mr. Rahul Singh of Global Medic, who heads the EMS in Toronto, said that the EMS wanted to help the rehabilitation of the people of the war-ravaged North on a humanitarian basis, and that the importance of demining and the attendant dangers were well understood by his group.

Mr. Singh said that Global’s Medic’s volunteers serve in the EMS in Toronto as paramedics.