FOLLOWING in the wake of day after day of snow, ice, and temperatures that would freeze the very marrow of Jack Frost himself, we at the Chronicle thought our readers deserved a winter's tale to warm even the most hardened heart.

It involves a young pregnant girl in a little village in Ethiopia and Nevill Hall's very own Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Link.

You may remember late in 2008 the Chronicle reported the shocking statistics that in Ethiopia one in 27 women die during pregnancy, and one of the major causes of death is the dire lack of any transport to take pregnant women who are suffering from complications to the nearest health-care facilities.

On a positive note we also reported how members of Nevill Hall's Gwent Health Link had travelled to Southern Ethiopia to present local health centres with two motorbike ambulances that the Link had purchased in an attempt to help improve the poor transport conditions that were literally costing lives.

Consultant surgeon and link coordinator Biku Ghosh told the Chronicle, "In Ethiopia the majority of the rural population lives more than five km from any health centre and 20% live beyond 10km. Health centres are typically between 30-70km from any nearby hospital.

"Access to the centres and subsequent transfer to hospital for serious ill patients is made more difficult because of the lack of any proper road.

"There are no ambulances. Women with serious complications in pregnancy are carried on makeshift stretchers by their family for miles to the nearest health centre. Then if subsequent transfer is needed to a hospital they will travel on the back of a truck. That is if they are lucky to find one going in the direction of the nearest hospital several miles away."

However, thanks to the Link's humanitarian endeavors the aforementioned motorbike ambulances have already proven their value in a way that cannot be defined by the cold logic of finance.

Biku explained, " Last week in Chobare village 18 year old Shemsia Sultan was going to have her first baby. Unfortunately her labour went on for many long hours, without any progress, and by the evening she was getting weaker and weaker.

"The nearest medical help was in Alaba health centre 40 kilometers away on roads in very poor condition and the nearest hospital was over 100km away.

"Shemsia's family had heard of the recent arrival of a motorbike ambulance in Alaba health centre and the midwives who had been trained there by the Gwent Health link.

"They telephoned the health centre in the middle of the night and soon the motorbike ambulance was on its way. Later that night Shemsia gave birth in the health centre, with help from the trained midwife, to her 3kg baby girl."

So far the two motorbike ambulances donated by the link in November 2008 to the Yirgacheffe and Alaba health centres have made 50 similar journeys in the last two months. The third motorbike ambulance donated by the Link was sent to to Ethiopia last week.

So there you have it. A reminder, if any were needed, on the massive difference efforts made and causes committed to in Abergavenny and other similar towns can have on a remote village, worlds apart, and millions of miles away, but linked through the common bond of humanity.

For more information and to find out how you can help in assisting the Link continue to carry out its life-saving work, visit http://www.ethiopiagwentlink">www.ethiopiagwentlink