Charity thanks Shepton Mallet NHS Treatment Centre for donation

Company news

Sep 29, 2014

Tim Beacon, director of Medical Aid International, looks at the difference equipment donations, such as the one made recently by Care UK’s Shepton Mallet NHS Treatment Centre, make to communities in Africa.

“A child is carried into the hospital, seriously burnt with his clothes sticking to him. The accident, at his mud hut home, happened two days ago. He needs urgent treatment. The clothes need to be soaked off and an urgent skin graft is needed as, without the graft, the risk of infection is high and the wound may never heal. Rapid treatment can also avoid burns contractures which are crippling, disfiguring and require painful surgical treatment at a later date.

“These are a daily occurrence in Lilongwe’s Kamuzu Central Hospital. Until recently, the child would have had to wait for days to get a space in the very busy theatre list in the main operating suite. This is just one example of a long list of issues regularly faced by people in the area.

“At Medical Aid International, we fix these problems by sourcing, sending and supporting all the appropriate equipment needed to re-equip operating theatres and hospitals. Through obtaining sensible pre-owned equipment, servicing it and making it suitable for the local hospital environment, we save the receiving hospitals many tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds and enable effective and complex surgery to take place, enhancing and saving many lives.

“The recent donation from Shepton Mallet NHS Treatment Centre was so exciting for us, because the anaesthetic machines were of such high quality that they will be going to a new charity orthopaedic hospital in Zimbabwe. There, complex operations will be carried out to enhance the lives of children and adults with musculoskeletal problems as well as contractures from injures such as burns.”