Nadeeka Chandraratne, joins CaHRU as an International Research Fellow

NadeekaChandraratneNadeeka Chandraratne joined the Community and Health Research Unit in May 2017 to work on the quality and costs of primary health care, as CaHRU’s second international research fellow.. She will study monitoring and evaluation of primary care systems in the National Health Service (NHS) and their applicability to low and middle income countries with high health standards, like Sri Lanka.

Nadeeka graduated as a medical doctor (MBBS with honours) from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo in 2006. She gained her Master’s (MSc) in Community Medicine from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) of the University of Colombo in 2011. She also completed a Master’s degree in Development Studies (MDS) at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo in 2013 and her MD in Community Medicine from the PGIM in 2016.

During her academic and professional career she has researched, published, trained and given invited presentations on a wide range of public health topics including child sexual abuse, premenstrual syndrome, gender-based violence, sexual harassment in workplaces, economic costs of tobacco and alcohol use, migrant health, child nutrition in communities and social health insurance for universal health coverage. She has won several national and academic awards and prizes for her publications.

sigiriya2Prior to joining our University, she worked as a Consultant to the World Health Organization where she was involved in preparing the WHO Country Cooperation Strategy for Sri Lanka and provided technical support to several activities including health financing for Universal Health Coverage.

She has also worked as a Consultant to UNICEF, and is an External Lecturer for the Department of Health Promotion, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. She is also a member of the Expert Committee on Alcohol, Tobacco and Illicit Drugs and was the Secretary of the Expert Committee on Women’s Health of the Sri Lanka Medical Association.

At the Ministry of Health Nadeeka has worked in several capacities including as the Medical Officer of Health (MOH) in the most populated area in the country. She worked as a Senior Registrar in Community Medicine at the Gender and Women’s Health Unit, Family Health Bureau, Ministry of Health and a Registrar at the Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Colombo.

 

Ravindra Pathirathna, international research fellow from Sri Lanka joins CaHRU

RavindraPathirathneDr. Ravindra Pathirathna joined the School of Health and Social Care and CaHRU in March 2017 as its first visiting international research fellow. Ravindra graduated in medicine from the University of Peradeniya and then completed postgraduate studies at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, in the field of medical administration where he gained his master’s and MD.

He has worked for 14 years as a medical officer in emergency medicine, health system manager and health care researcher. As a health system manager he developed experience in various fields of hospital and public health programme management. He worked as a hospital director in many secondary and tertiary care hospitals in Sri Lanka and worked as deputy provincial director of the health department in the central province of Sri Lanka. His main interests are in operational management, system development and quality improvement in health care.

gaullesunsetRavindra has published several research papers, for example in the Journal of Medical Administration in Sri Lanka, mainly in the area of health systems. These include: a study testing a new model of evaluation of health policy; interventional research using total quality principles and systems theory in inter-hospital patient transports; and workload assessment in health care administrative staff. He has also published in the fields of: cost evaluation of healthcare training; managerial approaches to waiting time reduction in clinical settings; interventions to improve clinical facility management; an epidemiological study on dengue in different climatic conditions and an evaluation of care in older people. He is a member of several academic associations in Sri Lanka including the College of Medical Administration of Sri Lanka.

During his visiting fellowship he will be studying the prehospital emergency system in the UK, mainly focusing on policy and operational background, ambulance service quality and clinical performance improvement. His main objective is to identify and develop an appropriate prehospital care model for a developing country such as Sri Lanka.

By Dr Ravindra Pathirathna