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Voices from ‘lived’ experiences to the fore MSF’s ‘Scientific Days Asia’ 2025
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The audience at the conference. Pix courtesy of MSF South Asia
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
It was not just another conference and exhibition—where important people meet, discuss and then go their own way.
The 2025 edition of ‘Scientific Days Asia’ of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF – Doctors Without Borders), held in Colombo on the rainy Friday of September 19, struck a unique chord.
Dr Madhava Dharmadasa
It was evident that MSF had meticulously kept to the theme, ‘Co-Creating Health: Listening, Learning, Leading: Community Voices in Healthcare Innovation’, providing a forum for more than 150 researchers, public health experts, activists, community leaders and patient advocates to confront systemic failures and demand accountability in global health.
MSF South Asia Executive Director: Parthesarathy Rajendran
Throughout the conference were heard voices from ‘lived’ experiences.
From rural-agrarian Kantalai in Sri Lanka, the international and local audience got an insight into ‘A low-cost psychosocial support system to improve healthcare workforce well-being in a post-crisis rural hospital setting’.
Dr Madhava Dharmadasa of the Health Ministry said he went as Medical Superintendent in 2022 to the 235-bed Kantalai Base Hospital with a staff of around 450, catering to a rural and agrarian community of about 100,000, after dual shocks to Sri Lanka—the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis. These crises had brought with them heightened psychosocial distress, including burnout, interpersonal conflict and emotional exhaustion.
Conventional support mechanisms, such as formal counselling, were underutilised due to stigma, confidentiality concerns and limited access in this rural setting.
Thinking out-of-the-box, ‘Sahurda Danawwa’ (‘A Friendly Atmosphere’) was launched—an anonymous platform for staff to submit concerns, challenges or personal issues without fear of exposure.
Dr Dharmadasa said suggestion boxes were strategically placed in non-public, discreet areas of the hospital known only to staff, thereby ensuring confidentiality and psychological safety.
Suggestion boxes placed at discreet spots in the hospital
Initially, there was only one paper, but gradually the boxes filled up, with the project addressing the critical need to create a psychologically safe and sustainable support system for staff. Submissions were reviewed monthly and used to guide expert-led fora on topics such as stress management, work-life balance and financial well-being. Participation data, feedback trends and institutional performance indicators (absenteeism, conflict rates and service expansion achievements) were monitored.
“The initiative led to enhanced staff morale, reduced emotional exhaustion and strengthened inter-professional collaboration. Staff members who were initially hesitant began participating actively, and the sense of collective resilience improved,” he said.
Better teamwork contributed to key institutional achievements, such as launching a dialysis unit and establishing a clinic for non-communicable diseases, despite human resources and funding limitations.
Underscoring that the approach proved to be more accessible and culturally acceptable than traditional counselling services, Dr Dharmadasa pointed out that the project was later expanded to include digital submissions. It was sustained under new administrators, validating its adaptability.
He added that this model is low cost, scalable and replicable across similar MSF or government healthcare settings globally.
The moment you walked into the lobby, meanwhile, before entering the conference hall, a huge poster claimed your eyes. The scenes brought back the realities of Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya as well as the stories of the ‘unsung heroes’ who worked silently behind the scenes, not for or against any political thinking, but to safeguard the health and well-being of all and sundry.
Online submissions introduced . Pix courtesy of Dr Madhava Dharmadasa
In the video ‘Sanity amidst chaos: The curious case of the Aragalaya street medics’, the audience heard the narrator intoning: “In early 2022,
Sri Lanka was a nation on the brink. An unprecedented economic crisis plunged the country into chaos, sparking a powerful people’s movement known as the ‘Aragalaya’—the struggle. As hundreds of thousands took to the streets, a different kind of frontline was being drawn.
“Amidst the turmoil, a group of doctors and social workers anticipated the inevitable: casualties. What began as a call on social media quickly amassed over 300 professionals. They were the ‘street medics’, initially armed with just backpacks of first-aid essentials, moving silently through the crowds… …a simple first-aid station grew into a fully-fledged field medical unit.
“But on May 9, ‘Black Monday’, their neutrality and humanity were brutally tested. Government supporters stormed the site, unleashing violence on unarmed civilians… The attack did not break them. It solidified their resolve… On July 9, as the protests reached their zenith, the medics activated their full emergency protocol, treating nearly 300 casualties in a single day.
“Over three months, this incredible collective of volunteers treated more than 3,000 patients and coordinated 450 critical hospital transfers. Guided by principles of impartiality and humanity, they provided sanity amidst chaos. The Aragalaya’s street medics became a powerful testament to professionalism and courage, offering a global benchmark for how to provide care in a nation’s most trying hour.”
Earlier, opening with a powerful call to action, the Executive Director of MSF South Asia, Parthesarathy Rajendran, reiterated that Scientific Days should go beyond showcasing research. “It is a space for confronting entrenched power dynamics in humanitarian healthcare. Communities, patients and survivors are not beneficiaries to be spoken for, but equal partners who carry living knowledge essential for solutions.”
Kantalai Hospital
On the same thread, delving into ‘Community Voices in Health Care Innovations’, Sarvodaya Movement President Dr Vinya Ariyaratne reiterated that time and again “true” innovation in health care emerges when community voices are heard, respected and integrated into decision-making processes.
“Communities are repositories of rich indigenous knowledge, cultural practices and lived experiences that can significantly enhance our collective understanding of health and well-being,” he said.
With regard to academia’s role in bridging research and action, Prof. Vajira Dissanayake, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, urged that the insights generated at Scientific Days must not remain confined to academic circles.
“Knowledge is not meant to sit in journals or conference halls,” he said. “It must travel into policy, practice, and systems that touch people’s lives—particularly those on the margins. Research without translation is a missed opportunity for justice.”
In his keynote address on ‘Frontiers of Abandonment, Frontiers of Care’, Prof. Devi Vijay of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta highlighted the moral contradictions within humanitarian and health systems, where systemic neglect has become normalised.
This year’s edition, hosted in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of
Sri Lanka, centred around the five urgent priorities of
policy-to-Practice Transformation; Research & Innovation; Capacity Building; Championing Community and Patient Networks; and Collaboration and Engagement.
The live wires behind the conference (from left): Public Health Researcher Dr Prashani De Silva; Strategic Medical Lead Dr Sevantee Ghosh; Public Health Specialist Dr Lahiru Kodituwakku; and Medical Unit Intern Thusitha Bulathgama, all from MSF South Asia
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