Paediatrician Alistair Morris is fresh back from a midwives' training week in Cameroon - where there was instant success.

One volunteer midwife was trained in the morning to use an oxygen mask  and, using her skills, was able to resuscitate a baby born the very same day and not breathing. 

Alistair was one of a team of four teaching 25 midwives in newborn care skills in Bamenda in Cameroon for the maternal and child advocacy international charity and ALSG.  In the hospital ( about half the size of our Trust and where some patients have to pay for oxygen)  they do not have basic equipment. The country has a neo natal rate of 30 deaths per 1,000 compared to 3 per 1,000 in the UK.

Alistair said: "We went out there to develop a midwifery training course. But it was also about understanding how other places work and you can't help but feel how lucky we are. There is very little equipment, some have oxygen, others haven't and we were teaching very basic neonatal and resuscitation and recognising when an infant is sick."