Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust is helping a brand new maternity hospital in Sierra Leone get up and running and has donated three ultrasound machines which will help people living in the country's rural Kenema district.
The new Nyayia Maternal and Child Hospital is a non-profit organisation which will look after women throughout their maternity journey - from before conception to after birth. The idea is to tackle "unmet rural community need" in the west African country, which has according to UNICEF the highest rate of maternal mortality on the planet.
In rural areas like those around Kenema, the problem is even worse due to limited access to medical facilities - and this is what the Nyayia hospital is hoping to fix. Magdalene Lebbie-Banya is the driving force behind the hospital project, and she said: "These ultrasound machines will really help us with diagnostics and therefore contribute to reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, which are among the highest in the world in Sierra Leone."
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The donation has been facilitated by the charity First Things Foundation. The charity's Jacob Marsnik said: "I was introduced to Magdalene about a year ago by a local mutual friend, who told me that there was a woman building a hospital in Kenema, a city near where we work in Sierra Leone, so I went to go and visit.
"Over time, as we got to know each other better, it seemed like the best way for us to help was to look for medical professionals from abroad who would like to come and work at the hospital and also to try and locate equipment, which led to us linking in with Northumbria Healthcare."
The ultrasound machines have a range of uses, explained Northumbria Healthcare's Chris Murray, who is the trust's lead sonographer - in charge of ultrasound scanning - at Hexham and North Tyneside hospitals along with the NSECH in Cramlington. Chris said: "The three machines that we are donating can be used for a range of purposes such as abdomen scanning, pelvic examinations, vascular assessments and musculoskeletal scanning.
"They are also very versatile in terms of offering the user a number of options when they are seeking a diagnosis for a patient. They have supported a large number of patients in Northumberland and North Tyneside, but remain in a great condition and will provide a much-needed boost to the Nyayia hospital, hopefully supporting high-quality care there for years to come."
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