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There are two main roads to the north from our area, and we built a clinic halfway up the right hand one a few years ago. Most of its work is in maternity or snake bite and by now it must have saved umpteen lives.

Meanwhile, the villages on the left had virtually no healthcare provision until we were lucky enough to get a grant from Swiss charity BasAid to build them a clinic too. The photos show the work so far. The exact location was chosen by the local authority and is at the village of Nyinampong. Nyinampong people are ecstatic with joy.

Last year we were lucky enough to get a grant for cataract operations from HANDS International and the Muslim Community and Education Centre. Eyes have special problems in Ashanti, partly because of the sun and partly because the area is on an old trading route from North Africa across the Sahara, and the traders brought a very virulent form of conjunctivitis. So there’s a lot of blindness and poor sight, which is terribly difficult to cope with if you’re a farmer.

We used half the grant last year, and then there was a pause while we assessed more patients. Last week, we used the remainder. A report is awaited, and we don’t yet know how many operations were carried out or what the success rate was, but here are some photos of the lucky ones.

Last week we wrote about our new project called ‘Develop A Ward’ in Mampong Maternity Hospital. Room by room, we intend to refurbish the hospital and provide it with modern equipment. And we will keep a close eye to see that our improvements are properly maintained.

Imagine our feelings when we were immediately promised two amazing sums of money to start the work – almost enough to cover the whole Mother and Baby Unit. We haven’t decided yet, but we’ll probably spend the it on some of the really important equipment the hospital lacks.

Thanks to our donors, halfway through 2019 will be a much better time to be born than 2018. We couldn’t be more grateful.

We’re starting a new project called ‘Develop A Ward’ in Mampong Maternity Hospital. The hospital has 55 beds catering annually for 2,000 deliveries and serves 102,300 people in Mampong District. It is also the principal referral point for maternity cases in its own and several neighbouring Districts.

We’ve chosen five rooms in different areas of the hospital to start with, and talked at length to the staff. They’ve told us how the absence of equipment damages their work. If, for example, if they had a scanner (price £405) they could measure the baby’s pulse and position and if necessary, rush the patient to theatre. A portable ultrasound machine that could move round the hospital would be only £4,035. Dozens of babies’ lives would be saved.

On this basis, we’ve put together and costed ‘shopping lists’ of everything needed in these five rooms. They range in price from £356 to refurbish a room in the antenatal ward to £12,439 to set up the mother and baby unit. We will use our own staff to oversee the work and they will account for every penny spent. And when we’ve finished the job, we will raise money to do the same for five more rooms.

Now we just need some donors to fund them. Please let us know if you have any ideas where we could find it.