A FORMER Worcester mayor is helping to save lives in Kashmir - by sending out vital ambulance equipment.

Councillor Allah Ditta is shipping over five ambulances full of equipment donated from hospitals, drop-in clinics and health centres.

All of the equipment, which has been collected since an earthquake devastated the region in 2005, will go to Kashmir hospitals.

Coun Ditta teamed up with local farmer John Bennett and the Worcester South Rotary Club to collect and store the equipment before it gets shipped over. The ambulances are full of vital equipment such as towels, bed mattresses, syringes, telescopes and operating lights.

Coun Ditta said he was "desperate" for one more piece of equipment to make it complete - an incubator.

He said: "The first thing I want to do is thank everyone who donated all this stuff. It's been a great effort.

"The idea was to try to fill the ambulances up with things hospitals in Kashmir need, and ship it off to them.

"We've got all sorts of stuff in the ambulances, from mattresses, to operating lights, to telescopes. One thing we are still desperate for is an incubator for babies, and people still have time because we aren't shipping it off until Thursday.

"If anyone has anything at all which could be of use to a hospital, I would urge them to contact me and I will come and pick it up."

The ambulances were paid for from donations made over the last two years to the Worcester-Pakistan Partnership.

John Bennett, who runs Manor Farm in Lower Wick, said: "All of the donated goods were kept locked away in a compound on the farm, and now we've loaded up the ambulances we'll be shipping them off on Thursday."

In October 2005, an earthquake killed more than 75,000 people across South Asia, including several members of Mr Ditta's family. It ruined thousands of schools and hospitals in the region.

To contact Mr Ditta before the ambulances are shipped out, call him on 07798 711700.

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