Angels hoping to do some good in Kenya

Dorothy Close and two colleagues from St John’s Hospital in Livingston have volunteered to spend a fortnight working in Msambweni District Hospital south of Mombasa in November.

The 60-year-old grandmother from Waggon Road, who has worked as a recovery room nurse at St John’s for the last 14 years and was at Falkirk Royal Infirmary for six years before that, has decided now is the time to “give something back”.

Dorothy, and her good friends Shona Robertson and Gillian Duffy have been planning the trip for a while.

She said: “We’d been chatting at work one day and saying we’d like to go somewhere to do some good, so I decided to look into it a bit more.

“I came across Camps International on the website and read about the volunteer programmes they organise abroad.

“Their hospital outreach scheme giving us the chance to work at Msambweni seemed to be exactly what we were looking for so I made inquiries and set everything up.”

The pals originally intended to meet the £1500 cost of travelling to Kenya and staying in Camp Muhaka in Kwale County themselves, but after being persuaded by family and friends Dorothy has launched a Go Fund Me page on Facebook.

She said: “Anything we raise will obviously help, but the main thing is we are going out there anyway to offer our support and do what we can. I’ve been told there is a high level of poverty in the area and the hospital is understaffed.

“We expect it is going to be a very humbling experience, but determined to do something positive while we are there.

“Although we work in the recovery room at St John’s, we are all fully trained in general nursing and want to put our experience to good use.”