Formby groups help Shyira Build Maternity Hospital
THE Shyira Trust, a charity established by St. Luke's Church, in Formby, is attempting to raise £300,000 to build a new maternity hospital in Shyira, Rwanda. If you don't know where Rwanda is, it is a landlocked East African Country, whose green, mountainous landscape has earned it the nickname:- "Land of a Thousand Hills."
After the genocide of 1994 and conflict lasting to 1999, Shyira maternity hospital was derelict. Supporters of St Luke's and the Shyira Trust provided funding of £26,000 for the rebuilding of the hospital, and a new 24 bed unit was opened in April 2004. It had no equipment or midwives. The Trust paid for 2 local Rwandese nurses to train as midwives at university in Rwanda. Formby Rotary club raised £24,000 for equipment.
Since 2009, when the 1st qualified midwife started work in Shyira, there has been just 1 maternal death. Shyira has about 1,100 births a year. Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Bank and the United Nations Population Division put the number of maternal deaths in Rwanda at 32 in 10,000 births in 2013. With just 1 death, in 5 years, Shyira hospital is much better than the national average, so it is hardly surprising that it has become very popular and that overcrowding has resulted.
The Rwandan government has introduced quality standards for hospitals that they have to comply with. This means the current Shyira maternity hospital is now only suitable for 12 beds, instead of the 24 it was originally designed for, so it has halved its capacity making the overcrowding situation even worse. A new building is required to comply with standards and increase capacity to save mothers and babies lives. The time constraints on the construction of the building are quite rigid - it should be completed by next April and will cost about £300,000. It will be built by local labour using local materials so the entire community will benefit through the construction.
It is often reported that Africans are corrupt and lazy. The experience of members of the Shyira Trust is that the people of Rwanda are hardworking and honest. There is a technical college in Shyira where many people have been trained in skills related to the building trade, so they have people able to work on the building.
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