Kathryn Sutherland

I am a retired general practitioner from Edinburgh who, during her first year of retirement, travelled as a health care volunteer to Mwaya Beach in the Nkhata Bay district of Malawi. I volunteered with RIPPLE Africa ( a corporate member of SMP) for 3 months during which time I was closely involved with the local community around Mwaya Beach, Kachere and Chintheche. I became especially involved in the under-5 clinics weighing and immunisations - and antenatal care at Kachere clinic. I also spent time assisting, and learning from, our local medical assistant at Mwaya Dispensary, a local clinic built by the charity but run fully by the Malawian health authorities. I developed links with the small hospital at Chintheche and attended ward rounds there weekly, and in time became an informal member of the team (the only doctor!). Along with other healthcare volunteers, I ran a health club for young people and helped to set up a women's group allowing local women an opportunity to discuss health and gender issues.,More importantly, in my view however, I got to know many local people and their families on a personal level and began to understand the enormous difficulties that they encounter every day fighting poverty, sickness and bereavement and yet they remained warm and welcoming to outsiders.,I hope to return to Mwaya Beach in 2015 for a further period of volunteering.,