Huddersfield hospital helps mercy mission

Jul 6 2009 by Anne-Marie Senior, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A FIXBY couple are leading a mercy mission to save children’s lives in Tanzania.

Now Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust has stepped in to help by donating more than £250,000 worth of medical equipment.

Operating tables, drip stands, surgical instruments and hospital beds are among some of the old items being stockpiled in preparation for the life-saving trip.

Retired breast cancer specialist John Philip and his wife Chris have organised a ten-strong team of volunteers to help deliver the equipment in October.

The group will be heading to a hospital on Ukerewe – an island on Tanzania’s Lake Victoria of similar area to the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.

Their mission will see them refurbishing operating theatres, decorating a maternity ward and installing donated medical equipment to help improve squalid conditions at the hospital.

They will also be training staff how to use and maintain their new kit and distributing 5,000 mosquito nets to patients and their families.

The volunteers will also help educate local people about child immunisation and malaria prevention by visiting schools and community groups.

The project comes after the Yorkshire Rotary leader and his wife visited the country last January.

They were horrified by the filthy conditions of the hospital’s labour ward, where they found ripped mattresses, dirty floors and a lack of medical supplies.

The operating theatres were even more shocking with non-sterilised instruments and rusty equipment being used.

There was even a broken window in the sterilising room and John doubted whether the anaesthetic machine was working.