The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Funding boost will support more lifesaving operations
ARCHIE: Wood Foundation investment to create eight operating theatres
A project to provide thousands of lifesaving operations to children in East Africa has received a boost of almost £1million thanks to a north-east charity founded by one of the oil industry’s most successful figures.
The ARCHIE Global Surgery programme, the international development arm of the children’s charity ARCHIE, has already hugely improved the quality of medical care available to youngsters in Uganda after it worked with The Wood Foundation to fund two new children’s operating rooms in the country.
And now The Wood Foundation, created by Sir Ian Wood and his family in
“The programme will make a most incredible difference”
2007, has pledged to support the charity with further investment in a new programme that will create eight new children’s operating theatres across East Africa in four years.
The ambitious new project will cost an estimated £1million – 80% of which will be provided by The Wood Foundation.
Through the new partnership between the Wood Foundation and ARCHIE Global Surgery, clinical expertise developed in Scotland will be used to help support and improve the quality of surgery on offer in Uganda and East Africa.
It is hoped the new funding will help to provide 5,000 life-saving operations a year.
Sir Ian’s son, Garreth, volunteered to help build the second of the Ugandan operating theatres.
Mr Wood said: “The Wood Foundation has very significant activities in East Africa, working with 45,000 smallholder tea farmers, and it is a region we know well.
“Our experience tells us there’s a huge need for the provision of sustainable safe surgery for children and – as a long-time supporter of ARCHIE’s work in Scotland – we are pleased to partner with them to support this development.”
Joe Mackie, the chairman of ARCHIE, said: “This very significant commitment and involvement from The Wood Foundation means we can continue our participation in Africa without impacting our significant expansion plans in Scotland. The ARCHIE-Wood Foundation Global Surgery will be an important lifesaving programme for thousands of children in Africa and will make a most incredible difference.”