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| HelpAge Sri Lanka is providing urgently needed emergency healthcare for thousands of people who were displaced by fighting in Sri Lanka in recent months. | |||||||||
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There are currently over 260,000 people living in overcrowded IDP Site in the Vavuniya area in the northeast of the island. |
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Figures obtained from the District Secretariat and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates there are about 13,875 older people in the camps and according to witnesses from the HelpAge Sri Lanka team on the ground, almost all have need of medical or nutritional assistance. |
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However, the government has stepped up releases of certain categories of people with special medical needs, including the elderly and pregnant women. Over 3,000 people have been released from temporary camps into host families and elders’ homes since April 2009. |
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Though progress has also been made on reunifying families separated during the fleeing, HelpAge Sri Lanka is also concerned about the situation facing unaccompanied older people living in the IDP sites. Additional tents for unaccompanied older people have been set up and we have provided training material for carers within the IDP sites to help; them understand and meet the needs of older people. |
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A Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) is providing essential health care to displaced older people. The MMU is fitted out with a patient treatment room, an optometrist’s examination room and a pharmacist’s dispensary, and provides 3,000 people with basic health and eye care every month. More than 200 IDPs queue each day for the MMU, to receive either medical services or eye services. Our medical staff found that almost 95% of older people living in the camps have sight problems. |
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“The loss of possessions has affected everyone, but for older people the loss of spectacles and mobility aids makes them even more vulnerable. The Mobile Medical Unit will provide spectacles to about 75% of those having eye tests” said the Director of HelpAge Sri Lanka. |
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| Please make your cheque payable to HelpAge Sri Lanka IDP Appeal and post it to the below address | |||||||||
| HelpAge Sri Lanka No 102, Pemananda Mawatha Raththanapitiya, Boralesgamuwa. | Direct Remittances to
Standard Charted Bank
Fort Branch
York Street, Colombo-01 |
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| Account No;-01-1100458-08 Swift Code:-SCBLLKXLX |
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