Dr Sarathchandra Kumarawansa joined CaHRU this May 2019 as an international visiting fellow from the University of Colombo’s Postgraduate Institute of Medicine. Kumarawansa graduated as a bachelor of Medicine and bachelor of Surgery in 1997 from the faculty of Medicine, University of Peredeniya. He obtained his first Master Degree (MPH) on Primary Health Care from Mahidol University in Thailand in 2006. Having served as the director of General Hospital Matale he completed his second Master Degree on Health care Management (MSc) in 2012 and MD in 2017 from postgraduate studies at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Inaddition he has attended international training programs on management of medical emmergencies in India, Japan and Thailand. He also has under gone international training on rehabilitation of disabled in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Kumarawansa has been working as a divisional level manager of the preventive health care program in central part of Sri Lanka for five years, director of General Hospital Matale for five years and as a deputy provincial director of the Central Province of Sri Lanka until he joined CaHRU.
Kumarawansa was a leading manager in improving health care quality and patient safety among health care institutions of central province of Sri Lanka. He served as a member of various professional bodies including productivity improvement team of the central province and the national productivity team of Sri Lanka.
His main interest is to improve health care quality and patient safety among health institutions of Sri Lanka. Kumarawansa has several publications into his credit in the Sri-Lanka journal of Health Policy and Management and Journal of Health Research central province mainly on interventions carried out to improve Health Care Quality and Patient Safety. He is a member of several academic associations in Sri Lanka including the College of Medical Administrators of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Medical Association. He is also a member of research evaluation committee of the central province.
While at CaHRU he plans to: study National Health Service (NHS) of United Kingdom with comparing to Health System of Sri Lanka; Primary health care system of United Kingdom focusing to the role of the general practitioner as a gate keeper; to study the prehospital ambulance service aiming to enrich the newly introduced ambulance survive in Sri Lanka and to study the strategies used in NHS of United Kingdom in improving health care quality focusing the clinical governance. Listening music, reading biography of world leaders are his favourite hobbies.
By Dr Sarathchanra Kumarawansa