The Highland GP who recently worked as a volunteer in an Ebola treatment centre in West Africa is set to launch a charity to fund medical training there.
Dr Chris Mair (61), a GP at the Creich Surgery in Bonar Bridge, Sutherland, spent six weeks in Sierra Leone at the end of last year. While there he learnt there were only 130 public doctors in the country which has a population of 6.6 million people.
He plans to return to the treatment centre in Kerry Town later this year. He is teaming up with Dr Simon Mardel, a consultant in accident and emergency medicine currently working in Manchester, to set up a programme to support medical education in the country.
They hope to attract funding from businesses operating in the area and from organisations that have a track record in supporting medical causes.
Dr Mair said: "While I was there it was clear to me that many of the country's healthcare systems were either failed or stretched far beyond their capability.
"On Christmas Eve, I visited the hospital adjacent to the medical school in Freetown, the country's capital. Grim is the only word to describe Connaught Hospital. It had virtually no doctors, with junior doctors being on strike and many of the senior doctors having succumbed to Ebola. Indeed, no operations were taking place there because of Ebola.I knew then that I wanted to do something to help."
He and Dr Mardel (57) attended St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London together in the 1970s.
Dr Mardel has was worked in about 20 countries, mainly in emergencies or outbreaks, with French, American or British non-governmental organisations, and the World Health Organisation.
While he was at Kerry Town Dr Mair worked with Scots public health nurse Pauline Cafferkey, who recently recovered from Eb
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