Those who are following our blog will remember seeing in December the dental chairs, pre-clinical skills equipment and a variety of other items packed into a shipping container by Stuart Bassham and his colleagues at Dentaid, in Salisbury. They left on a truck bound for Southampton and then to be sent by sea to Mozambique before the overland journey up to Malawi.
In February we received confirmation that the container had reached Mozambique, but shortly afterwards Cyclone Idai arrived, causing severe damage in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The devastation affected millions of people with extensive loss of life as well as massive damage to homes and infrastructure, which is going to have a very long term impact.
On 28th March, we received a message from Peter Chimimba, our Project Lead in Malawi, to say that the container would soon arrive in Lilongwe and a few days later, after customs clearance, the truck bearing the container rolled into the grounds of the College of Medicine campus at Lilongwe.
When the container doors were opened, the contents were all intact despite the long journey and the storm:
It’s good to know that the equipment is now safely stowed indoors and awaiting installation:
Stuart Bassham and Terry Bristow from Dentaid will be joined by Jonathan Langley, an engineer with Henry Schein, from 9th-15th May in Lilongwe, to undertake the installation of the equipment. We’ll report on progress in a later post.
Many thanks to Scottish Government International Development for the grant that has allowed the re-purposing and transportation of the dental chairs donated by NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and to Dentaid and Henry Schein for their tremendous ongoing support.
So good to hear, and I wish you all God’s blessings and joy this Easter and the days ahead. Love Hazel Hazel McCorrisken