Intensive care facility for children with severe COVID

The university paediatric unit, Teaching Hospital Karapitiya, renovated a separate room for children with COVID-19 who need intensive care. The room was opened on 1st July 2021 as a non-ceremonial event. Professor Sujeewa Amarasena, Vice-chancellor of the University of Ruhuna and Dr Shelton Perera, the director, Teaching Hospital, Karapitiya and Professor Vasantha Devasiri, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, inaugurated the room and paediatricians in THK gathered to grace the occasion. Dr Aruna De Silva, Senior Lecturer, Department of Paediatrics, coordinated the project and organized the opening event. The sponsors for the project were Mr Athil Goonasekara, Mr Aruna Hewawasam, Mr Kalana Manawadu, Dr Hemamali Senevirathne and Harischandra mills.

Previously, no particular place was designed for children with severe COVID 19 in the Teaching Hospital Karapitiya. Therefore, children who need intensive care facilities must admit to a common intensive care unit shared with adult patients or transfer to Lady Ridgeway Hospital. The newly renovated room helped to fill this vacuum. The room was previously used as an isolation room in the ward without any intensive care facilities.
There is a capacity to give ventilator care for one patient, and the facilities are there for the bystanders of sick children. In addition, there is a portable paediatric ventilator worth 2.0 million placed inside the premises, and it will be shared by the paediatric intensive care unit and paediatric accident and emergency department.
Since intensive care facilities are scarce in the country, the university paediatric unit's long-term plan is to utilise this room to provide care to all critically ill children from Southern Sri Lanka until they find a proper ICU bed.

18^th Academic Sessions and 17^th Vice Chancellor’s Awards Ceremony

The 18^th Academic Sessions and 17^th Vice Chancellor’s Awards Ceremony of University of Ruhuna was held on 03^rd  March 2021 at the Faculty of Medicine , University of Ruhuna

Ruhuna International Science and Technology Conference- RISTCON 2021

 The 8^th Ruhuna International Science and Technology Conference (RISTCON 2021), organized by the Faculty of Science, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka was held on 17th of February 2021 with the participation of the chief guest, Snr. Prof. Sujeewa Amarasena and the guest of honour French Ambassador Eric Livertu. The RISTCON-2021 was enriched by the keynote speech of a renowned scientist, Dr. Daniel Gorman, CSIRO, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia while the plenary lecture by an eminent scientist, Professor Ragupathy Kannan, University of Arkansas Fort-Smith, Arkansas, USA. The conference was a great opportunity for all conference attendees (about 150 presenters) to hear the latest findings from their respective fields of research and also to learn from their vast experiences.

Inauguration ceremony of the TROPIMUNDO Master Degree Programme

TROPIMUNDO is a European Commission funded and excellence-labelled Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems (https://www.tropimundo.eu/ ). We welcomed the second batch of the TROPIMUNDO Master Degree Programme students to the University of Ruhuna on 09^th April 2021 with the participation of the Vice Chancellor, Snr. Prof. Sujeewa Amarasena, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Saman Chandana Ediriweera, the Local Coordinators of the programme, Snr Prof. L. P. Jayatissa and Dr. K. A. Sunanda Kodikara.