DAVID CRUSE and KUSHIL GUNASEKERA combined to provide more than 400  villagers at the Foundation of Goodness Seenigama with an expert medical clinic on Tuesday 20 th March when the Australia Sri Lanka Medical Aid Team made their twelfth visit to Sri Lanka. Dr. Sian Hughes – paediatrician at the Royal Children's Hospital and Dr. Jennifer Johns – Director of Cardiology at the Austin Hospital were assisted by a doctor from the Apollo Hospitals Group and Quintus de Zylva. The medical clinic commenced at 9am and finished after 4pm with a short break for lunch provided by the Foundation of Goodness. Shiranee Sinnathamby and Nalini Joseph acted at interpreters and nursing aids during this mammoth effort on a hot and humid day. David Cruse doubled over as a male nurse, interpreter and man-Friday.

The experience that AusLMAT gained in coping with such an enormous number of patients on one day was worth a thousand words. Here was expert medicine taken to the grass roots of the Tsunami ravaged Seenigama/Hikkaduwa village.

Amongst the children seen that day was a child who had developed a problem with her speech – a classic post-traumatic disorder from the havoc created by Tsunami. High blood pressure was noted in several patients and appropriate medication and advice given to these poor souls who are still trying to cope with that Boxing Day tragedy. A man had lost his job collecting coral from the reefs close by – he had taken to alcohol to literally drown his sorrows – and now presented with numbness and tingling in his hands and feet – the classic presentation of a peripheral neuritis due to alcohol damage to his peripheral nerves. Advice and multivitamins were dished out in abundance.

AusLMAT will translate into Sinhalese and Tamil the patient leaflets on hypertension, asthma, angina and other common diseases that we use in Australia. AusLMAT will also upgrade the drugs available at the pharmacy – given free of any charge to these villagers.

AusLMAT will consider doing such a medical clinic at the Foundation of Goodness on each of the future visits to SL. Our initial commitment to Galle and Sri Lanka was for five years after Boxing Day 2004 but we might need to consider making this an indefinite commitment as the need persists. The AusAID Interplast Team were also kept very busy at Karapitiya and Matara and David Young and his orthopaedic team operated on many a patient at Karapitiya.

AusLMAT welcomes anyone who would like to join us in this soul satisfying project in Sri Lanka.

Kushil Gunasekera commenced the Foundation of Goodness even before Tsunami struck –the need to help those less fortunate than ourselves only got more acute after Boxing Day 2004.

FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) said “ But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on”.