Garreth and Nicola Wood to build Kenya operating room for children

Nicola and Garreth Wood (front) founded the charity in January 2018

A Scottish charity is to build the first operating room to treat children in a refugee camp.

Edinburgh-based Kids Operating Room (KidsOR) will create the facility at the Kakuma camp in Kenya, which is currently home to 190,000 refugees.

Founded by Garreth and Nicola Wood - the son and daughter-in-law of oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood - the charity was founded in January 2018.

It has already installed 25 operating rooms across Africa and South America.

The charity, which will ship out equipment from its warehouse in Dundee, said more than 16,000 procedures had been carried out on children at its existing theatres.

Of their current 25 operating rooms, 18 are situated in sub-Saharan Africa, but all are in "stable settings" compared to the plans for Kakuma.

The operating theatre will be built at the Kakuma camp in Kenya

Speaking from the Davos economic forum in Switzerland, Mr Wood said he and his wife were incredibly proud of the project and that providing such care was "a basic human right".

He added: "The World Health Organisation figures now say two billion children around the world cannot access the essential surgical care they need.

"Nicola and I are parents, our own children are very lucky because they were born in the UK and have required surgical intervention, so we know of the pain and anguish on not just the child but the parents, families and communities."

'Serve as a model'

KidsOR advisory board member Neema Kaseje, who is a paediatric surgeon from Kenya, said the need was great in Africa because it had more than 26% of the world's refugee population.

She added: "Usually in these settings you would find there isn't any equipment for children or infrastructure that is adapted to children, therefore providing surgical services for children in these settings is very difficult.

"This is actually quite new and it's great KidsOR has taken the lead in this area.

"This could actually serve as a model for other humanitarian contexts beyond Africa."