Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2012-02-15

MoU Entered into between the Ministry of Health and Samanala Valley Foundation and the Issuance of Free VISA

- Samanala Valley Foundation is a duly incorporated INGO which works in collaboration with Vision 2020 which is the global initiative for the prevention of blindness, initiated by the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness. Sri Lanka is a signatory to this programme since the year 2000. The objective of Vision 2020 is to eliminate avoidable blindness from Sri Lanka by the year 2020. The project hospital is situated in a Tea Estate, where the estate community can get free medical expertise and free medicine from visiting teams of foreign and local doctors. The Ministry of Health has already entered into a MOU with Samanala Valley foundation to proceed with the activities of the project and the proposal made by Hon. Maithripala Sirisena, Minister of Health to obtain resident Visa facilities for the members of the Samanala Valley Foundation free of charge and to gazette the MOU, was approved by the Cabinet.