MIDWIVES from Gloucestershire are delivering vital training to their counterparts in Sierra Leone.
Julie Garnham, Michelle Poole, Shan South, Carolyn Plumb and Emma Pope will deliver training to 20 midwives after a grant was obtained by Gloucestershire Charity the Kambia Appeal to deliver training in the Kambia district of Sierra Leone over the next two years.
One of the team, Michelle Poole, worked at Stroud Maternity Unit for 20 years before taking up a new position with Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The five midwives flew 3,000 miles to the war-torn West African state on Saturday to begin the first trip of the programme and will return on Sunday, July 14.
Speaking before leaving, Julie Garnham, divisional nursing director at Cheltenham General Hospital, who is coordinating this first teaching trip, said: "We are all excited but also a little nervous because we don't know what to expect as none of us have been to Sierra Leone before."
Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world and women are 120 times more likely to die in childbirth than women in Gloucestershire.
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