more students, a sentiment 
Rodriguez echoed.

“The 
president 
firmly 

believes that anyone who works 
hard should not be priced out 
of a college opportunity and 
college education, particularly 
with the demands of today’s 
economy,” Rodriguez said.

He said the administration 

has also made progress by 
working 
to 
keep 
interest 

payments low and cap student 
loan payments at 10 percent of 
their income.

As well, by putting the 

Free Application of Federal 
Student Aid online and making 
it both easier to complete 
and available three months 
earlier, Rodriguez said the 
administration is trying to 

give 
hard-working 
students 

as much time as possible to 
search for the college that’s 
right for them and receive the 
aid they need.

“We will continue to work 

with more communities to 
strengthen education access, 
affordability and success for 
their students,” he said.

Ted Mitchell, U.S. under 

secretary of education, also 
joined the call, mentioning 

how federal aid can only do 
so much, and states need to 
reinvest in higher education to 
keep the cost of college tuition 
down.

“It’s important to recognize 

the 
major 
driver 
of 
the 

increase in costs and the 
increase in tuition prices is 
a result of widespread state 
disinvestment 
in 
higher 

education 
since 
the 
Great 

Recession,” Mitchell said.

Group strives to 

provide better care 
to underdeveloped 
areas of country

By MADELEINE GERSON

Daily Staff Reporter

The Medical School and the 

School of Business have teamed 
up with the goal of increasing 
access 
to 
health 
care 
and 

education in Sri Lanka.

For the project, the two 

schools are partnering with the 
Grace Care Center, a shelter 
for orphan girls and the elderly 
located 
in 
Trincomalee, 
Sri 

Lanka. The shelter provides 
food, housing and schooling for 
dozens of girls and destitute 
elderly individuals, many of 
whom fled war or were impacted 
by a 2004 tsunami.

Business 
graduate 
student 

Patrick 
Camalo 
and 
Erica 

Dancik, a Business and Public 
Health 
graduate 
student, 

became involved in the GCC 
project 
through 
a 
Business 

School MBA class this semester 
called International Business 
Immersion: Healthcare Delivery 
in Emerging Markets. Twenty-
five students from the class are 
participating in five projects 
around the world.

Camalo said the Sri Lanka 

project will also include students 
from the Ford School of Public 
Policy and the School of Public 
Health.

“We focused on looking for a 

financial model for diabetes and 
hypertension in a remote area of 
Sri Lanka, in Trincomalee,” he 
said. “We wanted to understand 
the current landscape of diabetes 
care and then understand what 
a financially viable way was 
to deliver improved care to a 
broader patient population.”

Dancik said she and the 

team spent time meeting with 
Dr. Naresh Gunaratnam, the 

shelter’s founder, before crafting 
the program.

“We 
then 
traveled 
to 

Trincomalee for one week so 
that we could see, first-hand, 
what 
the 
health 
landscape 

looks like and so that we could 
interview and interact with 
some of the project’s key players 
and stakeholders,” she said.

Gunaratnam, 
a 

gastroenterologist 
at 
the 

University of Michigan Medical 
Center who was born in Sri 
Lanka, founded the GCC in 
2002. He fled the country with 
his family after the country 
became embattled in civil war in 
the 1980s.

“My father was a physician, 

and 
he 
loved 
teaching 
at 

the hospital in the capital,” 
Gunaratnam said. “He took his 
family out of the country that 
he loved because he thought it 
would give my brother and I a 
brighter future.”

Gunaratnam’s 
father, 

who 
passed 
away 
when 

Gunarantam was a teenager, 
served as an inspiration for 
the 
establishment 
of 
the 

orphanage and elder care 
center in Trincomalee.

“When I had established 

myself as a physician and 
had the opportunity to help 
children like myself who had 
lost a parent, I jumped at the 
chance,” 
Gunaratnam 
said. 

“I empathized with their loss 
and knew the impact a few 
caring souls could have on 
their lives.”

The primary goal of the 

Business 
School’s 
project 

team is to eventually bring a 
long-term health care system 
to Trincomalee through two 
phases, the first focused on 
telemedicine and the second on 
self-sufficiency and expansion. 
Telemedicine is when doctors 
use Skype or other technology to 
provide care from afar.

As part of the collaboration, 

Anjan Saha, a medical scientist 
training program fellow at the 
University, traveled to GCC 
last December to help facilitate 
a camp that provided blood 
pressure 
and 
blood 
glucose 

tests to patients. Saha said 
the telemedicine aspect of the 
program has been very successful 
in providing information to the 
doctors in Sri Lanka.

“Reception for all of our 

projects has been good and we 
have continued to be invited 
back,” Saha said.

Currently, GCC — which also 

aims to safeguard the health and 
safety of the local population 
— is focusing their new health 
care initiative on hypertension 
and diabetes treatment and 
prevention. The blood tests Saha 
assisted with in December were 
free of charge to patients and 
funded by the Global Reach fund 
of the UM Medical School.

A total of 35 patients received 

testing, 
demonstrating 
the 

potential for the effectiveness 
of the health care delivery 
program, Saha said.

While the camp was deemed 

successful, Camalo said there 
is more work to be done. 
Affordability of care and building 
trust and interest among the 

Trincomalee residents are key 
goals 
Camalo 
and 
Dancik’s 

team are considering. Though 
primary health care in Sri Lanka 
is free, there is a lack of doctors 
and efficiency is a problem, 
which leads to long waits and 
often discourages locals from 
visiting clinics.

“It is a very inefficient system, 

so there is an emerging private 
sector market where people have 
to pay for care,” Camalo said. 
“However, people do not have a 
lot of money to pay for that, so it 
is usually targeting the wealthy 
population.”

Camalo said the team is 

exploring a few ideas for creating 
a sustainable financing source 
for the blood-testing program. 
He said one potential method 
could be a monthly subscription 
plan to encourage visits or a 
cross-subsidized program that 
would 
take 
payments 
from 

those who were more capable 
of affording the care to support 
the payments for lower income 
individuals.

“We are trying to incentivize 

different behaviors from the 
patients,” Camalo said. “If they 
come more frequently, we will 
give them a discount. People 
tend to come in only when their 
diabetes is out of control due to 
lack of education.”

Outside of the partnership, 

students 
on 
campus 
are 

providing other forms of aid 
to GCC. Student organization 
GracedU was founded in 2015 
by LSA sophomore Sahr Yazdani 
and LSA junior Rasika Patil to 
provide educational resources 

and support to girls at the GCC 
through 
video 
tutoring 
and 

other forms of outreach.

Yazdani has been working 

for GCC for five years and 
worked with the medical school 
to develop “Elder Care Night,” 
during 
which 
GCC 
medical 

assistants considered ways to 
improve the health care of senior 
citizens. Yazdani said her visit 
to the shelter in the summer 
of 2015 was a life-changing 
experience. She made the trip 
through VeAhavta, the non-
profit organization based in Ann 
Arbor that helps run Grace Care 
Center.

“From the moment I stepped 

off the bus, the little girls clung 
to my hands and legs, proudly 
showing off their home and 
their family,” Yazdani said. “The 
girls from Grace taught me the 
power of resilience — many of 
them have been through the 
toughest of life’s situations, 
but never once did they reflect 
negatively on their experiences. 
They demonstrate what it means 
to have courage in the face of 
adversity.”

Patil said she created the club 

after being inspired by the girls 
of GCC.

“I recognized a motivation 

within myself and my colleagues 
to help foster the Grace girls’ 
enthusiasm 
for 
learning,” 

Patil said. “Their dedication 
to the pursuit of knowledge is 
incredibly inspiring, and, in turn, 
we are dedicated to providing 
them with the peer support and 
educational resources they need 
to develop that passion.”

2A — Thursday, March 24, 2016
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

TWITTER TALK 

SINDUJA KILARU/Daily

LSA sophomore Sivanthy Vasanthan speaks about the 
sociology major at the Newnan Center’s Major/Minor Expo 
in the Union Wednesday

M A JOR M ANIA

Medical and Business schools partner to help Sri Lanka 

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THREE THINGS YOU 
SHOULD KNOW TODAY

In this week’s B-Side, 
Daily 
Art 
writers 

profile 
Seven 
Mile 

Music, a group bringing 
education to Detroit.

>> SEE B-SIDE on 1B
2

CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES

Refugees and 
health care

WHAT: Professor from 
Bilkent University 
in Turkey lecturing 
on how the rufugee 
crisis impacts health 
care in Europe.
WHO: Center for 
European Studies 
WHEN: 4 p.m. 
to 5:30 p.m. 
WHERE: School of 
Social Work, room 1636

Belgian police are still 
searching for a Brussels 
terrorist attack suspect, 
Najim Laachraoui, who 

is believed to have placed a 
bomb inside the departure 
terminal of the airport, CNN 
reported. Laachraoui is also 
linked to the November 
attacks in Paris.

1

Jazz concert

WHAT: University jazz 
trombone quintet and jazz 
ensemble perform the 
music of Miles Davis and 
John Coltrane. It will be 
directed by Dennis Wilson 
and is free with no tickets 
required.
WHO: School of Music, 
Theatre & Dance
WHEN: 8 p.m. 
WHERE: Rackham 
Graduate School Auditorium

Presidential 
frontrunners 
Hillary 

Clinton (D) and Donald 
Trump (R) each won 

their 
parties’ 
respective 

primaries in Arizona, CNN 
reported. Sen. Ted Cruz 
(R–Texas) saw victory in 
the Utah Republican caucus 
and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders 
(D–Vt.) won the Idaho and 
Utah Democratic caucuses. 

3

Teaching race

WHAT: Roundtable 
discussion with faculty 
about challenges and 
strategies of teaching 
race and media. The event 
will strive to create a 
conversation about race.
WHO: Department 
of American Culture, 
Latina/Latino Studies
WHEN: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
WHERE: North 
Quad, room 2435

Politics of 
economic 
inequality

WHAT: Columbia University 
visiting Prof. Andreas 
Wimmer presenting on 
“ethno-political inequality.”
WHO: Department of 
Political Science
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
WHERE: Haven Hall, 
Room 5670

Mock law class

WHAT: Richard 
Bierschbach, Yeshiva 
University law vice 
dean and professor, 
will teach a mock law 
class on whether or not 
corporations should have 
constitutional rights. 
WHO: The Career Center
WHEN: 12 p.m. 
to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Union 
Pond Room

JPMorgan 
Chase 
breakfast

WHAT: Chance for 
students with diverse 
backgrounds to network 
with JPMorgan Chase.
WHO: Career Center
WHEN: 9 a.m. 
to 10:30 a.m. 
WHERE: League 
Hussey Room 

CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES

Poetry talk

WHAT: Michigan State 
University Prof. Catherine 
Ryu examines the relationship 
between Japanese court 
poetry and anime. 
WHO: Center for Japanese 
Studies 
WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: School of Social 
work, room 1636
l Please report any error in 
the Daily to corrections@
michigandaily.com.

International 
economics 

WHAT: Economics 
Prof. Dominick 
Bartelme lecturing 
on scale economies in 
international trade.
WHO: Department of 
Economics 
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5:30 
p.m. 
WHERE: Haven Hall, 
room 5670

 
 
 

The Michigan Swimming and 
Diving Program tweets the 
program had the majority of 
athletic scholars.

“FACT: U-M had 70 student-
athletes receive Academic All-Big 
Ten for the winter. More than half 
came from our pool (38). #GoBlue”
 — @umichswimdive

“I love that professors here are truly 
outstanding in their fields. Makes me 
feel like I’m learning from the best!”
 —@UmichStudents
 
 
 
 

This week’s @UmichStudents tweeter 
Jennifer Noble praises the faculty at the 
University.

Each week, “Twitter Talk” 
is a forum to print tweets 
that are fun, informative, 
breaking or newsworthy, 
with an angle on the 
University, Ann Arbor and 
the state. All tweets have 
been edited for accurate 
spelling and grammar. 

LSA Dean Andrew Martin tweeted 
an article reporting Real Madrid 
and Chelsea FC will play a match 
over the summer in the Big House.

“If true I can’t wait!”

- @ProfADM

FOLLOW US!

#TMD

@michigandaily

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