Montepuez Ruby Mining donates ambulance to local Health Centre

Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) has donated an ambulance to Namanhumbir Health Centre, to transport patients from 20 local villages of Namanhumbir Administrative Post in Cabo Delgado province to the centre. The ambulance provides a much needed solution to one of the biggest challenges faced by the 30 thousand inhabitants of the 20 villages - accessing the only Health Centre in the area. The donation follows feedback from the community as a whole, but especially from pregnant women who had often previously had to give birth in their own homes or on the way to the Health Centre due to a lack of access to transport. João Paulo Abdalla, Health, Women and Social Action Director of Montepuez, explains, “We will see the impact of this offer, especially on pregnant women, reducing maternal and child mortality, allowing the life of the mother and child to be saved.” The ambulance will also enable the health centre to transfer patients from Namanhumbir to specialised units better equipped to treat certain diseases. The donation underpins MRM’s ongoing commitment to improve the quality of life of local communities through various programmes, with the area of health one of its focuses for social funding. Throughout the global pandemic, MRM has continued to support a set of community initiatives at local, district and provincial level for the prevention of Covid-19, through the donation of hygiene items, the production of face masks and the disinfection of public spaces. In addition to the ambulance donation, Montepuez Ruby Mining has previously constructed a new block for external consultations at the health centre and  already provides two mobile clinics that offer basic health services on an on-going basis to at least 10 communities living far from the Namanhumbir Health Centre. Since the beginning of this particular project, in March 2017, approximately 125,000 consultations have been provided in the areas of maternal and child health, immunisations and external consultations. Tereciano Dinis, Community Leader of Namanhumbir said, "Since the company started the exploration, it has brought good impacts to help communities, such as accessibility to drinking water and energy, mobile health clinics, and now this ambulance. On behalf of the Namanhumbir community we are very pleased to have received it.”