In 1899 South Indians were taken in to Sri Lanka for labor work. Those people were tracking from Colombo to upcountry through Kurunegala, in that period; to treat those people Kurunegala hospital was first established here.
The missionary mothers were the first to work here in this hospital. In 1905 trained nurses were taken over the hospital work.
In 1942 the current administrating building was established. The nurse’s training school was started in 1957 in the hospital premises (this is one of the oldest NTS in Sri Lanka).

Kurunegala city is the main city of Kurunegala district. The Teaching Hospital Kurunegala is the only one of that kind in NWP, is situated on the Colombo Kurunegala road about 0.75 k.m. away from the city towards Colombo.Teaching Hospital Kurunegala is one of the largest hospitals in Sri Lanka.

The bed strength is over 1700 and the staff is over 3500.The hospital spreads over 35 acres land and serves people through more than 100 units.The Teaching Hospital Kurunegala caters more than 1.2 million patients annually. This number includes the patients from the other districts also, namely Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee, and Mathale.

The average outside patients are coming to the hospital (including the clinic patients) for treatment counts more than 1 million annually. Over 20,000 Obstetric admissions and over 14,000 deliveries take place annually in THK.Over 24,000 minor and 12,000 major surgeries are also performed annually, in order to provide better healthcare to the people.

The medical laboratory at Teaching Hospital Kurunegala offers a tremendous service to the patients, carrying out over 60,000 investigations per month. For the past few years, the hospital had a rapid development programme in infrastructure and improvement in the quality of work together.

Teaching Hospital Kurunegala is the only Government Hospital which maintains a successful computer network with electronic patient record system for patient data management.Dr.Ananda Gunasekera a former director of Teaching Hospital Kurunegala from 1992 to 2009 was the person who dedicated to developing this hospital with modern facilities including IT.Through implementing the 5S concept Teaching Hospital Kurunegala became an award-winning hospital under his administration.Former deputy director Dr.Kamal Jayasingha who was appointed to MSD in April 2010 has also given his maximum contribution to developing this hospital.

Achivements & Awards

• Winner of the First Place of 5S Total Quality Management contest Wayamba Province 2006 conducted by JAICA EBM study of the ministry of health Sri Lanka
• Second place in the National Health Excellency award 2007curative care category conducted by Ministry of Health
• First place in the National Productivity Award  competition Service sector large scale Conducted  by National Productivity Secretariat Ministry of labour relation and man power.