79-year-old Krisnapillai Ponnampalam has received treatment at our mobile medical unit.

HelpAge International is providing urgently needed emergency healthcare for thousands of people who were displaced by fighting in Sri Lanka in recent months. 

There are currently over 260,000 people living in overcrowded Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the Vavuniya area in the northeast of the island. 

The Ministry of Health and Nutrition and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates there are about 14,000 older people in the camps. According to HelpAge Sri Lanka’s team on the ground, almost all are in need of medical or nutritional assistance. 

Vulnerable groups released

However, the government has stepped up releases of vulnerable groups from the camps, such as older people and pregnant women. Over 3,000 people have been released from temporary camps into host families and older people’s homes since April 2009. 

Recently the government announced that some 9,000 older people will be allowed to leave the IDP sites to join their relatives. However, those who are reluctant to join relatives will not be forced to leave.

HelpAge International, through our local partner HelpAge Sri Lanka, is assisting the government in looking at the quality of care in some of these homes. We will start intensive training in Vavuniya town for carers working in the homes. 

Concern for unaccompanied older people

Though progress has also been made on reunifying families separated as they fled the fighting, HelpAge is also concerned about the situation facing older unaccompanied people living in the IDP sites.
Additional tents for unaccompanied older people are being set up and we have trained carers within the IDP sites to help them understand and meet the needs of older people.

Essential healthcare

A Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) is providing essential healthcare to displaced older people. The MMU is fitted out with a patient treatment room, an optometrist’s examination room and a pharmacist’s dispensary, and provides 3,000 people with basic health and eyecare every month.
More than 200 older people queue each day for the MMU, to receive either medical services or eye services. Our medical staff found that 95% have sight problems. 

“The loss of possessions has affected everyone, but for older people the loss of spectacles and mobility aids makes them even more vulnerable. The MMU will provide spectacles to about 75% of those having eye tests,” said Jerome Piercy, Programme Director of HelpAge Sri Lanka.

79-year-old Krisnapillai Ponnampalam, fled the fighting in April. He is now living in the one of the IDP camps known collectively as Manik Farm, where he shares a small tent with other 3 families.

He is blind in one eye and has been treated at the MMU. He says “I’m very happy about these services provided to vulnerable people. Older people, like me, living here with a lot of difficulties need more support to care for them.”