News, Views and More from Batch'64, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, SriLanka

Dr Lakdasa Dissanayake MS FRCS

An astute cancer surgeon, a strict disciplinarian great sportsman, first parachute diver SLAF & more than anything a wonderful human being. My mentor though I am a physician.

That fateful Thaipongal day, 14th January 1990 this dedicated surgeon who never ever took a public holiday off, on the insistence of his loving sons and family, postponed his cases for next day at Cancer institute Maharagama and accompanied his family and a friend’s family to the sea Beruwala-Bentota area. Cruel fate, of not only all the family and friends and his trainees, tragedy struck and country lost one of its most valuable sons in the sea.

I had the fortune of working with him at the base hospital Nawalapitiya as one of his two post intern house officers other one being Pushpa Yakandawala Dissanayaka.

That six months I learned not only surgery, but also empathy and many things about life. He was practicing surgery of Cancer of gullet Oesophagus a very long surgery, a three stage procedure called Ivor Lewis Oesophagostomy single-handedly. Though initially his success rate was not optimal, with time and experience he mastered the technique and was a saviour of many economically down trodden estate Tamils who were having a large number of these cancer due to their habits of betel chewing.

A man of very strict principles, never did private practice and it’s with his agitation with the ministry of health, extra duty hours’ payment was allowed for consultants too who were not doing private practice.

I remember once he was on his way to his home in Nugegoda on first day after a surgery of a cancer patient and half way at Avissawella he went to a telephone booth and called me to check the progress of the patient. I had to tell him there was a leak (dye leaking into a bottle) immediately he turned back and came straight to hospital to do the repeat surgery. That’s the level of commitment to his patients.

Once there was a very poor woman from Lindula didn’t do well after surgery and she was keen to die at home and in case she died in hospital to take a dead body to Lindula it would cost the family a fortune. So he arranged an ambulance to Lindula and both of us accompanied the poor woman to local hospital (as hospital cannot transfer patient to home) and got the DMO to admit the patient and discharge immediately and on the way back to Nawalapitiya hospital we dropped her at estate line home. That was a show of his humanity at its best.

The last time I contacted him was to get my bond signed as a guarantor for my overseas training, he was in PGIM and he was in a very happy mood as his first appearance as an examiner for a postgraduate exam, he never bothered even to ask me what’s the amount he was signing as a guarantor, that is the level of confidence and trust he had on me.

The number of incidents he helped me out and my family at Jaffna during war times will take so much space to write here. Even before I left the shore to leave for UK for training I got the worst news as a shock on a Thaipongal day that my Guru was no more.

Dear Sir, you will be always in my prayers and heart and Sri Lanka is so unfortunate to have lost you at such a young age under tragic circumstances.

May Your Soul Rest in Peace

Forwarded through Praxy by

Dr. MK Ragunathan