About Me

My name is Marianne and I have been working as a Doctor in London for 7 years. I specialised in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (pregnancy related problems and women's health) five years ago, and now work as a Senior Registrar in a busy West London Hospital.

I have always wanted to volunteer medical aid to women in developing countries - however, as you can imagine, this is difficult to do in practice when you have a full time job working for the NHS! Now that I have developed the necessary skills (and have been granted time off!), it has finally become a reality.

My Project

I will be travelling to Ethiopia on 9th May for 2 weeks with a group of 9 doctors, 8 nurses and 2 general helpers. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world and therefore any aid is hugely valuable. Despite a population of over 90 million, there are less than 2000 doctors.

We will be volunteering at Bethel Teaching General Hospital, just outside the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. Here we will provide free medical care to any women presenting to us - unfortunately many of these women will have advanced gynaecological conditions (including cancers) requiring surgery. Our aim is to optimise the short time we have away from our regular jobs, and therefore we will be working full day shifts (12-13 hour days) with just the Sunday off to rest!

What will the funds go towards?

I hope to raise funds to help me with the cost of this trip - I would be extremely grateful for any donations made, however small! 

I am raising £1500 for the flight, transfers, and accommodation.

Any extra funds will go towards helping the rest of my team get to Ethiopia. We will also be visiting an orphanage on our day off, donating clothing as well as books and educational materials.

The trip is organised by a small charity called Wings of Healing. Please have a look at their website - WingsofHealing.org.uk - which gives information about previous visits to Ethiopia and some background to the charity.

Please please please share this project with anyone you think would support me – on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, telephone, or even by good old face-to-face conversation!

Thanks everyone!