Thank you for visiting our wedding list justgiving page!

We have been living together for a year already, and Claire is abnormally skilled in purchasing all manner of necessary and unnecessary items for our home, so we have decided not to make a conventional gift list. If you would like to give a gift a donation towards the provision of resources for St Francis Hospital in rural Zambia would be really appreciated, and would be put to great use.

St Francis' is a 350-bed hospital in rural Zambia, providing medical and surgical care to the people of Katete District (population 200,000), as well as accepting referrals from the whole of Eastern Province (population 1.5 million). The hospital has two large medical wards, two surgical wards, a maternity unit, a paediatric ward and a special care baby unit. It also provides a busy outpatient service. The hospital is fully integrated into the Zambian Health Service and part funded by the Zambian Government, but also receives funding via the Anglican and Catholic Churches and from overseas support groups in the Netherlands and the U.K. It has a predominantly Zambian staff of 400, but also uses volunteers from overseas to compensate for the national shortage of clinical staff. Claire worked at the hospital for 8 weeks as a final year medical student in 2010, and experienced first hand the valuable role the hospital plays in meeting the significant healthcare needs of people living in the surrounding region.

We have been in touch with representatives from the hospital to seek advice on the specific needs that the hospital has at this time, that your money would go towards meeting. Many thanks to Dr Helen Brocklehurst and all those involved in the financial management of SFH for putting together the list below. Please submit your name alongside any gift that you make so that we can identify you and send a thank you. If you would prefer to donate by cheque, cheques may be made out to ‘St Francis Hospital Katete’ and sent to us at Flat 10 Datchet Meadows, Datchet Road, Slough, SL3 7FR. If you would like to find out more about St Francis' please visit http://www.saintfrancishospital.net/

Gift List (written by Dr Helen Brocklehurst, Medical Officer, St Francis Hospital)

Big projects:

· Repairing & replacing oxygen concentrators – Pneumonia is one of the five top causes of death among the under-5s in Africa. Giving oxygen can improve survival. We have a few oxygen concentrators in the hospital. As the name suggests, they concentrate the oxygen in the air & can deliver 80-92% oxygen depending on the rate of flow. The main challenge is maintenance – we have more concentrators in the workshop than on the wards sometimes! Usually they are waiting for spare parts, the most expensive of which is the compressor - £1000 each. A functioning concentrator can provide oxygen for 3 children simultaneously.

· Spare parts for anaesthetic machines – Our anaesthetists do a great job with very basic equipment, including providing anaesthetic services for about 600 Caesarean deliveries per year! Some of our equipment needs repairing, the cost will be in the region of £1000.

Any donations towards these projects would be very welcome.

Smaller projects:

· Haemacue machines – This is a gadget you may have seen if you have ever given blood. Using a drop of blood obtained from a finger prick, the machine can measure the haemoglobin within seconds. Malaria season is underway and we have dozens of children coming every day with signs of anaemia due to malaria. We recently acquired a haemacue (brought by a visiting paediatrician) and it has revolutionised practice on the paediatric ward – we can measure a child’s haemoglobin instantly, saving work for the lab staff & nurses, and speeding up the process of giving life-saving blood transfusions. We would like to buy a second machine to be used in outpatients and by the night coverage nurse. They cost about £100, and single use cuvettes for testing blood are £35 for 50 tests.

- Endotracheal tubes - Used in theatre where they are inserted into anaethatised patient's airways and used to provide airway ventilation during operations. We are currently washing and recycling them but they won’t last forever. They cost around £25 for five.

· Glucometer sticks - Used to measure blood glucose levels. Valuable for detecting hypoglycaemia in children with malaria, and stabilising acutely ill diabetics. They cost £20 for 100 tests.

· Lactogen – This is a breastmilk substitute/supplement and really useful on the special care baby unit for babies whose mothers can’t produce enough milk, and malnourished babies under 6 months old. It is much more nutritious than giving glucose water which is often our only option. £20 will buy 5 tins.