Wellege Hemachandra Fernando was an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Born on 1 July 1958 in Pussellawa, Ceylon, he was the second child of Wellege Simon Fernando, a medical practitioner employed by the Ceylonese Department of Health and his wife Adeline Grace née Da Silva. He was educated at the Royal Primary School and the Royal College in Colombo where he won prizes for best student in physical and biological sciences in 1945. The following year he took up a scholarship to study medicine at Ceylon University. He did house jobs at the De Soysa Hospital for Women and the General Hospital in Colombo from 1951 to 1957 and was mentored by Sir Nicholas Attygalle and Don Abraham Ranasingha. In 1959 he passed the fellowship and, three years later, the fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. On his return to Ceylon in 1961 he commenced practice as a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist employed by the Department of Health. In 1951 he had married Srimathi Nalini de Silva (Srima) and they had a son Ruwan and daughter Malathi who followed her father into the medical profession. Outside medicine he was a music lover and also collected antiquarian books particularly those relating to Sri Lankan history and culture. He died in 2003.