Haematology

Haematology department of LRH provides clinical and laboratory services under one roof to children with wide range of blood related disorders. The department has several functional units; the laboratory service, Clinical service, Haemophilia centre and the upcoming haemopoietic stem cell transplant unit.

The Haematology laboratory provides 24 hour service through its main laboratory in the first floor of Surgical building and the OPD laboratory in the ground floor of OPD building. The main laboratory caters for inward children and also to children referred from all over the country for diagnosis of rare haematological diseases. The OPD laboratory caters for the clinics and OPD. The Medical laboratory technologists in the laboratory have received specialised training locally and overseas. In order to maintain high standards of analysis, we conduct regular internal quality assessment and participate in national external quality assessment programme conducted by MRI and UK-NEQAS for coagulation.

Haemophilia centre at LRH is the first designated haemophilia care centre in Sri Lanka. It was established in 1999 under the guidance of Dr Sudarma Vidyatilake, Consultant Haematologist. The centre provides specialized care for children with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders. The medical officer, nursing officers and the physiotherapist have had special training at overseas haemophilia centres, organized by World Federation of Haemophilia.

A centre dedicated for paediatric transplants, especially for non-malignant diseases is a need of the country and therefore a facility for allogenic bone marrow transplantation is to be established at LRH. The programme will be supported by the Haematology department of the Christian Medical College Vellore, India. A group of doctors and nurses have already been trained at CMC, Vellore. The infrastructure of this unit is at near completion. Registration of children for transplant has commenced.