GWENT and Ethiopia are worlds apart, but local doctors and nurses are helping bridge the gap between these two worlds by training life-saving professionals in one of the world's poorest countries.

A team from the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall hospitals have recently returned from the country where one of the team, midwife Melrose Easter admits "They have big, big challenges out there."

One of those challenges is tackling the country's appalling rate of maternal death, with 561 women dying for every 100,000 live births.

The senior Nevill Hall nurse said: "In Dilla hospital maternity unit, there is one woman per day with a ruptured uterus, a very dangerous condition that very rarely happens in the UK.

"We used basic teaching aids like a knitted uterus and a tennis ball to show what a constriction would look like."

Low-tech equipment is crucial to the group's work. Motorbike ambulances donated by the project have transformed the way rural health centres can get sick people to treatment centres.

Nevill Hall-based consultant surgeon Biku Ghosh led the team on their latest visit in November, having founded the partnership, called the Ethiopia Gwent Link in 2000.

"We gave two of the motorbikes during the latest visit." Mr Ghosh explains.

"Combined with two previously given, they have made over 1600 patient journeys mostly with pregnant mothers. Many of these have been at nights and often over 20km distances. Between them they have saved many lives of mothers and babies."

Royal Gwent microbiologist Cath Price, 26, admitted "nothing could prepare you for the experience".

She and her boss Dave Williams donated four microscopes and gave training in laboratory services.

Miss Price was impressed by how the small rural clinics cope with massive challenges: "Seeing the problems of a place like Alaba health centre puts our problems into perspective. They manage to do so much with so little."

Biku Ghosh adds: "There are only a handful of hospitals for the 81 million, mostly rural population of the country, so health centres like the one at Alaba are vital.

"Many life-saving procedures can be managed here. To do this, the Ethiopia Gwent Link will keep training all the key health workers: midwives, nurses and lab technicians."