The Green Memorial Hospital (GMH)
The Green Memorial Hospital (GMH), is the most valuable medical-related charity project in Sri Lanka.
GMH is a medical heritage of Ceylon, based on the fact that this facility was established in 1848 by the American Doctor Fiske Green as the first Teaching Hospital for Western medicine in British Ceylon, and the second oldest in South Asia.
The next important characteristic of this cause is that it serves the people of the country with treatments they cannot afford for their wellbeing.
Furthermore, this entity went on to train medical care and technical staff selected from among the orphans of the war that ravaged the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka. These training schools continue even today with young people being given careers in the medical field and providing uplifting in life for the poor.
GMH has also gone on to engage in other charitable work in other parts of the country and the intention is to help uplift the country as a whole.
As such, GMH can be said to be the only charitable project of its kind, in addition to being a proud heritage of Ceylon located in the Jaffna suburb of Manipay in the northern Peninsular of Sri Lanka.
As a result of the war in Sri Lanka that ravaged for 3 decades, there is also a diaspora of Sri Lankans who are settled down in various parts of the world and giving great support to this project. Through them, we have seen complete strangers to Sri Lanka also coming forward to be a part of this beautiful and touching story of humanity. Work to renovate and reestablish this vintage Hospital commenced in 2002 with the setting up of the UK Charity, Friends of Manipay Hospital (FoMH).
Among the wide and varied initiatives to raise funds for the GMH cause, one significant and very successful drive was the annual cycling tour first held in 2017 as a fundraiser. The idea was to cycle from the capital city Colombo to the Manipay Hospital just over 400km in 4 days which is quite a challenge given the sunny weather conditions. This has grown since into a spectacular event where we see many forms of participation from cyclists to non-cycling participants to donors and sponsors, who collectively pull in a lot of funding for the cause. Besides the funding, this annual tour delivers an amazing experience of Sri Lanka which is also fast developing as a tourist destination of many diversities.
This annual ride is now bursting at the seams and now at crossroads to expand in several parallel events with professional organizing. The motto of the ride is to "leave no one behind," which gives courage to anyone from ladies to senior folk to come on board to collect funds from their friends and families. There are even training and fellowship groups in several overseas hubs so that people can take on cycling and prepare so that they could be a part of this cycling tour and also see a great country.
In the past 8 years, the ride has been raising a lot of funds through proud participants and will be clocking TEN YEARS soon. The GMH Cause for GMH has been going on since 2002 and is looking at celebrating its 25th year in 2026, next year.
It's been a great journey for all those involved from then to now as the joy is when donors and contributors visit the hospital.
Sri Lanka is a land in history from time immemorial and its people believe in its traditions of helping humanity. This is a country where people from many faiths and religions exist with one another as done for centuries and compassion prevails in every household.
It's amazing how the world has many such good people who like to be a part of the GMH cause. You too could be one. Feel free to share with like-minded people as the hard work hitherto done is to be seen on the ground in Manipay and all are welcome to visit when here next time.
Sriomal DeSilva
Director
Ride4Ceylon Guarantee Limited
Sri Lanka
Our three charities wish to commemorate the founding of Green Hospital in Manipay in the nineteenth century by Dr. Samuel Fisk Green who was born on October 10, 1822 at Green Hill, USA. As a qualified doctor he arrived in Ceylon on October 6, 1847. On this day, we also commemorate the 175th anniversary of Dr Green’s landing in Point Pedro, Ceylon.
Friends of Manipay Hospital (FOMH) charity was founded in 2005 to revive the Green Memorial Hospital from its war-damaged, dilapidated state. The American Ceylon Medical Mission (ACM) in Jaffna began in 1819 and Green Hospital, Manipay was started by Dr Samuel Green in 1847 along with a medical school (American Mission Medical School), the first medical school in Ceylon. Colombo Medical School was established 20 years later in 1870 and gradually the Manipay Medical School was wound down and closed. However, the Green Memorial Hospital continued to serve the local community until it became unsustainable during the 30 year civil war in Sri Lanka.
FOMH trustees together with leading medical clinicians in Jaffna established the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) in 2014 to rescue and revive Green Memorial Hospital which was at the time almost at the point of closure.
The Institute of Medical Sciences became the local delivery partner for FOMH charity and from small beginnings restored clinical services at Green Hospital and runs niche services such as free Family Medicine and Paediatrics as well as in-patient neuro-rehabilitation. IMS provides training for school leavers to become healthcare professionals and at the beginning helped orphanages by taking in children who had to leave orphanages on reaching 18 years of age.
Ride4Ceylon is an entity that was initially started as a brand for fundraising by FOMH in March 2018. It has now organised itself as an independent charity based in Sri Lanka as from August 2021. It is run by a committee headed by David Rasiah, Nishantha Abeywardene and Sriomal De Silva. FOMH has raised substantial funds through Ride4Ceylon to revive and restore Green Memorial Hospital and make it a proper hospital.
Prof Rajendra Surenthirakumar (Dean of Jaffna Medical Faculty of the University of Jaffna) who was founding President of IMS is also the Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board for GMH. He is ably supported by several medical trustees including Dr Coonghe - Senior Lecturer in Community Medicine at the University of Jaffna, Consultant Family Physician Dr Kumaran - Senior Lecturer in Family Medicine at University of Jaffna, Dr Premakrishna, a senior Consultant Anaesthetist at Jaffna Teaching Hospital, D Mathivaananan - Consultant General Surgeon at Jaffna Teaching Hospital, Dr Kandeepan - Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Jaffna Teaching Hospital and a former Medical Director of Jaffna Teaching Hospital, Dr Nachinarkinian. IMS Trust is registered as a not-for-profit entity in Sri Lanka.
The charitable services we provide are mostly free or provided at minimal cost and available to anybody in need, irrespective of any social divisions they may belong to.
In the last decade, Green Memorial Hospital has been transformed beyond recognition, and provides a valuable service to the people of Jaffna. The Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI), in providing the land lease together with the buildings that FOMH renovated to bring into clinical use, with their far-sighted vision, Ride4Ceylon who have raised funds for FOMH and IMS who provide the clinical services, can all indeed be enormously proud of this great achievement.
The tripartite partnership of JDCSI with the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) and the fund raiser charity in Sri Lanka - Ride4Ceylon all working together demonstrates ‘Par excellence’ at Green Memorial Hospital, that when people of every persuasion, creed and culture come together in common endeavour, the final product is far greater than the sum of its parts.
The Trustees of FOMH, IMS and Ride4Ceylon receive no remuneration and provide their time and expertise voluntarily.
FOMH, Ride4Ceylon and the Institute of Medical Sciences are three co-equal charities working to preserve a great Ceylonese Heritage founded by Dr Samuel Green in 1847 at Manipay.
Prof Jayantha Arnold MBBS, FRCP (London) and Mr Anandan Arnold FCCA, PG Dip Oxford
Trustees - Friends of Manipay Hospital Registered UK charity.(Read More . . .)
