Generous Oban donations bound for West Africa

Kind-hearted residents of Oban and Benderloch are helping a small West African country which has a desperate lack of health services.

On Saturday, donations of medical supplies filled a transit van driven by Bill Nelson, left, founding trustee and chairman of First Aid 4 Gambia.

Mr Nelson, aged 65, a commercial first aid at work trainer for nearly 20 years, was born in Nigeria where his father was a water engineer. He said: ‘In West Africa, what we take for granted, like a sticking plaster, they just don’t have.

Mainly what I concentrate on collecting is first aid supplies such as bandages, plasters and whatever you would find in a first aid box. It’s that basic.’

People donated bags of children’s clothing and walkers, wheelchairs, zimmer frames, crutches and walking sticks which are all in short supply there and could otherwise end up in landfill in Scotland. But the work does not stop there as the charity has to raise the costs of shipping the goods to the Edward Francis Teaching Hospital in Banjul, Gambia’s capital city. Mr Nelson, of Inveraray, is supported by trustee George Carruthers, an ambulance technician with his own first aid training company.

A manufacturer, Reliance Medical Supplies, provides the charity with massive discounts on bulk-purchase items such as plasters and Mr Nelson said the van he was using for collections had been donated free-of-charge by WD Semple, a Renault dealership in Inveraray. He also thanked the area’s Give and Get Free Facebook page for promoting the event.