A RETIRED South Lakeland midwife is in Cambodia this week on a humanitarian mission, helping rebuild the country’s healthcare system.

Sue Knowles, 56 of Briery Meadows, Kendal, is working at a hospital in Battambang with the charity Transform Healthcare Cambodia.

This is her second trip to the country having worked at the hospital in November last year.

While in Cambodia, Ms Knowles is sharing her clinical skills, knowledge and expertise with midwives at the Battambang Referral Hospital, teaching about breech birth and the management of twin births.

Before retiring in December 2015, Ms Knowles worked for the NHS for 38 years, working as a matron at Helme Chase maternity unit at The Westmorland General Hospital, Kendal, and at both the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Furness General Hospital, Barrow.

Ms Knowles also worked as a midwife in the Middle East in the 1980s and even helped deliver royal babies, working on the VIP and Royal delivery suites for Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan, the President and ruler of the United Arab Emirates.

"The midwives and all the doctors and nurses at the hospital are all incredible and all so keen and eager to learn," she said. "They are very knowledgeable and dedicated and make the most of the limited resources available to them.

“My time working at the hospital has been a humbling one but also an amazing experience. I would recommend the experience to any other midwife or nurse reading this and I hope to return again soon."

Transform Healthcare Cambodia was co-founded in 2011by Sue Smith, executive chief nurse at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, and Dr Edwin Pugh MBE, a retired medical professor from the North East.

Cambodia is still recovering from the atrocities of the murderous Pol Pot regime which decimated the country in the late '70s.

In power from 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot and the brutal Khmer Rouge regime were responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century and claimed the lives of around two million Cambodian people.

To find out more visit: www.transformhealthcarecambodia.org.uk