Wales for Africa fund training for burn nurses.

For the last 6 years, the Welsh government’s Wales for Africa programme has supported Interburns projects in West and East Africa including:

• Two projects to improve burn care at two government burn units in Ghana, the National Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Burn Unit at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi

• A project to provide support and burns training to several key units in Ethiopia, including Addis Ababa Burns and Emergency Trauma Hospital, Yekatit-12 and Jimma University Hospitals.

We are delighted that Wales for Africa will support us with a grant to improve nursing care in the key government burn units in Malawi, at Kamuzu Central Hospital, Lilongwe and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Blantyre. These 2 units are the main referral hospitals for the central and southern regions and receive burn patients from all over the country. As is the case in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, burn nurses in Malawi face many challenges due to shortages of staff, training and resources such as wound dressings, splints, and analgesia.

Several nurses from Malawi attended Advanced Burn Care (ABC) Nursing in Ghana and Ethiopia in 2016 and 2018 and 2 nurses have delivered Essential Burn Care (EBC) and ABC Nursing training.

Our academic partner, the Centre for Global Burn Injury Policy and Research at Swansea University, is running an implementation science and quality improvement course specifically for nurses in Malawi.

Interburns would like to thank Wales for Africa for their continued support for our work over many years.