School of Health & Wellbeing

‌Many thanks to all who have donated so far to the Dr Nana charity, set up to provide safe and comfortable facilities for women from the poorest areas of northern Ghana to give birth. Donations are still being accepted, if anyone else would like to contribute. 

Laurence Gruer, one of our honorary professors, was married to Nana, a Ghanaian-born doctor. She died on May 8, 2013 after a long illness. In her memory he has set up a charity, Dr Nana, dedicated to improving health in rural Ghana. I'm honoured to be one of its trustees. Since January, we have been  building a six room community maternity centre in Balungu, a village in one of the poorest districts in northern Ghana. This will provide women with safe and comfortable facilities to have their babies - exactly the sort of place my PhD research recommends. It will be the first health facility in Ghana built with the Nubian Vault method. Using sun-baked mud bricks, skilled masons have created a cool, modern functional building  without any wood and minimal metal. Painters, tilers, plumbers and electricians are applying the finishing touches and it will be finished by the end of May.

We have raised enough money to finish the building but need about another £10,000 to fully furnish and equip it. For example, a fetal heart monitor will cost £420, a bed £170, an examination lamp £70, a manual suction machine £43, a sterilising drum £21 and a blood pressure meter £11. Please donate generously to help us get the service up and running in the next few months. You can contact me for the full equipment list (dareshadrach@yahoo.com). Donors can have their names included on a plaque in the waiting room, alongside those of everyone who worked on the building.

Donating is simple. Just go to https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/drnana and follow the instructions.

Dr Nana is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SC045750).

Shadrach Dare
IHW PhD student

---

First published: 15 May 2018