Manchester Airport funds Ugandan health centre
MANCHESTER Airport has funded a £200,000 extension to a health centre in Uganda led by a Cheshire charity.
The now completed expansion to Medcare’s Wellspring Children’s Medical Centre in Masaka, will help save the lives of 5,000 children.
Construction work to improve the medical centre began in May last year following three years of airport fundraising. The extension doubles the size of the existing malaria ward – where 50% of the children coming into the clinic at present are malaria victims – and provides a physiotherapy unit, counselling room, a vocational training room, antenatal and post-natal clinics and a new, enlarged pharmacy and laboratory.
Around 11,000 children a year are currently treated at the centre and it is expected that this figure will increase by 5,000 within the next 12-18 months.
More than £30,000 of new medical equipment, including hospital beds, wheelchairs, microscopes, mosquito nets, crutches and walking aids, were shipped over to Uganda and installed in the medical centre earlier this year.
Dr Pauline Hutchinson, chair of Cheshire-based Medcare, said: “Now the expansion project is completed, it gives us the ability to save the lives of an additional 5,000 children every year, as well as catering better for AIDS and HIV victims and those with disabilities. It is anticipated that with the additional services in the lab and clinics we can double the number of disability and HIV or AIDS cases we help with.”
A team of Manchester Airport staff and Medcare representatives travelled to Uganda to see the new extension and witness first-hand how it is already changing people’s lives.
Anna Russell, head of internal communications at Manchester Airports Group (MAG), said: “It was a fantastic experience for me to go and see the work that the charity is doing in Masaka. We are so grateful to all our employees and service partners who have supported our fund-raising over the past three years, and most of all to Pauline and the charity, who have channelled our expertise and the funds, to ensure they have maximum impact for the local children.
“The children now have somewhere to go and receive malaria treatment and you can see that the medical centre has become a real haven for the community, providing care and giving hope to the surrounding villagers.”
