Plans for Sri Lankan ambulance service abandoned

Operation Phoenix has abandoned plans to run an emergency ambulance service in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka because it can't raise any more money in the Waikato.

A plea for $38,000 to operate the seven-week-old service throughout next year barely raised $2000, said Hamilton city councillor Ewan Wilson, who founded Operation Phoenix soon after the tsunami.

"It's basically donor fatigue... people have just said enough is enough," he said today from Canada where he is on holiday with his family.

In recent days Operation Phoenix gifted the ambulance to St John in Sri Lanka who would now fund it, he said.

The Sri Lankan trust behind the ambulance service was reported to be angry at Mr Wilson for pulling out. There were also complaints people and bills had not been paid.

Mr Wilson said money had been released overnight to pay outstanding accounts.

He said Operation Phoenix was now finished in Sri Lanka after raising more than $200,000 to rebuild 67 houses and a medical centre, plant 500 coconut palms, clean 13 drinking wells, and establish an ambulance service.

"I'm just really proud of the Hamilton tradesmen who volunteered to go over there and the Hamilton people who donated so generously."

The idea to set up the ambulance came after builder Andrew MacDonald, who joined Phoenix in the early days, was injured in a motorcycle accident while carrying out relief work in Seenigama. Other relief workers hailed a passer-by to take Mr MacDonald to hospital.

The village, 96km from Colombo, was home to more than 350 families and 2000 people before the tsunami hit on Boxing Day last year.

- nzpa