Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

We have donated over 3000 medical text books to the Awassa College of Health sciences, to the local hospitals and health centres. We have also donated training mannequins, training videos, teaching slides, teaching microscopes, laboratory reagents as well as other teaching equipment including projectors and a photocopier.

Oxygen supply in most hospitals in Ethiopia is extremely poor. The local hospitals in Dilla, Awassa, Yirgalem, Arbaminch and Hosanna have been donated with 8 oxygen concentrators so far by the link with support from Oxygen Therapy Air Products, UK. We have also donated one oxygen concentrator to each of the three health centres involved in the Exemplar Health Centres project.We also support these health centres with a large amount of other essential medical equipment.

Three health centres (Wondo-Genet, Alaba and Yirgacheffee) have been equipped with 2-3 computers and a printer each for e-learning purposes. These computers have been pre-loaded with a wide variety of educational content.

We have also donated the first motorcycle ambulances for transfer of critically ill patients from health centres to nearby hospitals. Halaba and Yirgacheffe now have one motorcycle ambulance each and Wondo-genet will get one in early 2009.These have been proven to be invaluable in other African countries.

We have also helped set up blood banking services at Dilla hospital. This has helped with emergency surgery including caesarian sections and other obstetric procedures that would have been otherwise impossible.