Message from Dr. Jayantha Balawardane, the Senior Consultant Oncologist of National Cancer Institute.

I wish to congratulate the Rotaract Club of Colombo Uptown for the success in organising this very charitable event for the fourth consecutive year.

Rotaract has indeed played a very significant role in organising service projects in Sri Lanka, and I wish to thank them for giving the much needed priority to the Health Sector, particularly, for the welfare of cancer patients. As some of you may know, doctors of the National Cancer Institute, diagnose and treat about 12,000 new cancer patients each year. However, over the past year the treatment centres in Maharagama, Karapitiya, Jaffna, Batticaloa, Kandy, Kurunegala, Ratnapura and Badulla reported more than 25,000 new cases. Treatment at the Cancer Institute is free of charge in keeping with the welfare policy of the Government. The Ministry of Health allocates a large sum of money each year to provide for the treatment of cancer patients and upkeep of the hospital with the latest medical facilities. Unfortunately, shortcomings and shortages are inevitable as the cost burden keeps escalating each year due to the high cost of new curative drugs and treatment schedules which are internationally accepted.

In 2012 the charity run generated a donation of medication worth Rs. 1.4 million, which has helped the cancer patients very much. I wish the Rotaract Club of Colombo Uptown success and hope it would continue to make such an impact every year by taking this project from strength to strength.

Therefore, I make a humble appeal to all organisations, philanthropists and kind hearted groups and individuals to rally around the Rotaract Club of Colombo Uptown and support this worthy cause.