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| Saturday, 16 August 2003 |
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by Edward Arambewala Minister of Foreign Affairs Tyronne Fernando and Minister of Economic Reforms, Science and Technology Milinda Moragoda will inaugurate an International Conference on psychiatry in Colombo on Sunday. This four-day conference which will be attended by over 300 foreign delegates is the second conference of the series, which has been organised by the U.K Chapter of the South Asian Forum on Mental Health and Psychiatry in association with the recently formed Sri Lanka College of Psychiatry and Co-sponsored by the World Psychiatric Association. The World Association for Phycological Rehabilitation and the Royal College of Psychiatrits UK. Dr. B. Somasunderam, President of the Sri Lankan Psychiatrists' Association (UK) who has been playing a major role in getting this event organised to help improve the psychiatric services here told the Daily News: Sri Lanka has a population of about 20 million and I understand that there are only about 20 psychiatrists practising in the health services, which is not sufficient for an effective and adequate mental health services. Most psychiatrists working in Sri Lanka have had some of their training in the UK and most members of our Association have commenced their medical training and careers in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Psychiatrists' Association (UK) was formed in 2001 by a group of 20 Sri Lankan psychiatrists practising in the UK with the initiative and support of my colleague Dr. Afzal Javed, Consultant Psychiatrist, North Warwickshire. The Sri Lankan psychiatrists who had come to the UK in the 1970s and 1980s having received first class training in the field of medicine in Sri Lanka decided to form the Association. We are all very proud of our training we received and it is the best and no second to the training of medical graduates in UK. The current membership of our Association has grown over the last few years since our inauguration. I understand that there are more than 200 Sri Lankan psychiatrists practising in the UK. Since the formation of our Association, we have organised an International Psychiatric Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka in April 2002 in collaboration with Prof. Nalaka Mendis, Professor of Psychiatry University of Colombo, which was very successful. Since then, the South Asian Psychiatric Forum (UK) was formed with representations from the British-Pakistani Psychtrists Association, British-Indian Psychiatrists' Association and our Association. This forum is organising an International Conference on Mental Health and Psychiatry at Taj Samudra Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka from August 17-20 and many delegates all over the world will be attending. One of the important aims of our Association is to give back to our motherland our expert knowledge and skills acquired over the years in the Western world. The time has come for us to give a boost to this beautiful island's Mental Health Services. With this strategy in mind, I became one of the co-ordinators of the South Asian Psychiatric Forum (UK) taking a very active part in the organisation of this conference. Both my Sri Lankan colleagues and I are looking forward to this conference with a lot of enthusiasm and I am sure it will pave the way not only to establish a strong link with the psychiatrists in Sri Lanka, but also to provide a useful platform to tackle the issues of mental health in Sri Lanka. |
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