TWO Gwent nurses have returned home after carrying out charity work in poverty-stricken Haiti.

Friends Gillian Smith and Sian White spent two weeks in the country to provide medical help with the charity One Mission Society.

Ms Smith, who is a paediatric nurse at Newport’s Royal Gwent Hospital, said they did some work with a type of GP service, which the charity was hoping to open 24 hours a day.

This included weighing babies and providing immunisation vaccines for babies, which she said many parents in Haiti found difficult to afford.

Ms Smith, from Crosskeys, explained how the medical centre helped a five-year-old boy who had suffered with a broken leg for five weeks because his family did not have the money to take him for treatment.

Ms White, who works in accident and emergency at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall Hospital, and Ms Smith paid for their own flights and accommodation.

They were also able to raise $2,000 through donations, which they took with them to spend on medical supplies such as baby milk formula and medicines.

During their trip, the friends visited several churches and a school in Cap Haitien and also went on a prison visit before returning home on March 11.

Ms Smith, who has also visited Mozambique, Johannesburg and Ukraine, said: “It’s a dreadful place with no running water in the prison. It was horrific. There were up to 44 men in one cell.”

To support the charity, see onemissionsociety.org.uk