Hospital surgeon prepares for mercy mission to Sudan

Omar Nugud, consultant surgeon at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, is to fly out with a team from South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and will be working in Khartoum, Port Sudan and Madri.

The group travels out in February, one month after a referendum on whether the people of the largely-Christian south decide to break away from the Arab-dominated north and form their own nation.

There has been almost 40 years of bloody civil war between the two sides. A peace process was agreed in 2005, but foreign experts warn there are signs it could be unravelling.

But despite the dangers of the trip, Mr Nugud and his team say they are determined to help. He said: "The poverty in Sudan's hospitals has made us more determined to visit the country and try to help.

"We have more supplies on one ward than they have in their whole hospital pharmacy.

"A four-bed bay out there is literally four beds and nothing else.

"They have sinks in the bays full of sand and no running water.

"Their intensive care unit is more basic than our general wards – they have no piped oxygen, just cylinders. And they reuse equipment that we would throw away. It is humbling compared to what we work with in Britain.

"The nurses out there never receive any training after they first qualify but things change all the time so they need to progress.

"Unfortunately they don't have the resources we do – we don't know how lucky we are."

Mr Nugud will be joined on the trip by Dr Mahir Hamad from The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, who has been working in the country for nearly two decades.

He said: "I have been to every part of Sudan to do teaching and voluntary work and people there expect me to do this. But they don't expect other doctors and nurses to come with me."

It is hoped the medical team which consists of consultants and nurses, will be able to treat more than 2,000 patients during the trip.