MIDWIFE Becky Millar has returned from a life-changing trip to South Sudan after spending a month helping to train nurses in the city of Wau. 

The mother-of-two returned home after taking leave from her job at the Great Western Hospital to offer training and advice to students at its new nursing college in South Sudan – which has one of the highest death rates among new born babies and mothers in the world.

Mrs Millar, 39, was inspired to make the trip out to Sudan after a conversation she had at St Mary’s Church with a member of the Salisbury diocese medical link team, who had just returned from there.

She said: “It was an amazing experience.

“I was working at the antenatal clinic which was very difficult and the hospital was even worse. “It’s completely different from what we are used to here, the clinic only had running water from taps outside and there was no electricity apart from two hours in the afternoon.”

Mrs Millar funded the trip herself, raising the £2,500 through car boot sales and donations from friends, the hospital and St Mary’s Church.

She said: “Everybody has been fantastic and the people at work have listened while I’ve talked about it hundreds of times and looked at all my photos.

“People at church have been really interested too. “They helped to fund the trip and they keep asking me ‘do you think you made a difference?’ but I don’t know, perhaps I did in the short time I was over there.

“I spoke to the some of the VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) nurses out there and I’m in awe of the work they do because they spend years at a time out there so they are the ones making a real difference.

“I’d love to do that but I have too many commitments. I would definitely recommend that other people go over there and see how two thirds of the world live. “Perhaps one of the students will think of me and remember me telling them to talk to their patients because they don’t do that.”