VALUABLE hospital equipment is being sent to a needy African country by a Worcester Rotary Club.

The Worcester South Rotary Club has organised for equipment, including an ambulance, to be shipped over to Masindi in Uganda to help equip two hospitals in the area.

Until last year, the area of Masindi, home to 400,000 people had two hospitals but no ambulance.

An ambulance was then sent out by the Rotary Club, but a great deal more has been acquired and is due to be shipped out.

The club has managed to lay its hands on equipment including beds, blankets, curtains and blood pressure monitors from the Ronkswood site of Worcester Royal Infirmary, which closed its doors in March.

It will now be transported to Felixtowe, where it will be shipped to Mombasa courtesy of Andrew Weir agencies.

John Bennett, a member of the international committee of the South Worcester Rotary Club, said the equipment would be a great help to people in Uganda.

"The people in the area are terribly short of equipment, and this will all help keep them alive," he said.

"It will stop them dying from trivial things which are easily prevented if there is the appropriate medical care.

"We throw away a great deal of things which are no longer of any use to us, but which are very valuable to people in Africa."