A RETIRED North Yorkshire physiotherapist is planning her third trip to a war-torn country where murder, torture, abduction and starvation are commonplace.

Elspeth Robinson, who now lives in Darlington, has paid her own way out to Uganda twice to put in a ten-week stint at a front-line hospital, in an attempt to make life better for some of the poorest people in the world.

Last year, she took £600 and performed wonders with it, indeed miracles in the eyes of the children and adults she encountered.

Her main aim was to work in a leprosy hospital in north-east Uganda, 27 miles from the ruthless Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group which abducts children and trains them to be soldiers.

"These rebels have fought against the government for 17 years, committing the most dreadful atrocities, which almost go unnoticed in the western world.

"They make the children murder their parents before abducting them, so they know they can kill. We had cases of gunshot wounds to arms and legs, the ones who survived."

She used a third of the donations to buy basic foods, such as cassava and millet flour, for hundreds of displaced people. Many ended up in the compound of the Kumi Hospital, which is run on donations.

The influx has put it under tremendous pressure, since the majority of patients are unable to meet their bills.

The medical superintendent's latest report says the LRA situation has escalated to the point where close on 1,000 children are believed to have been abducted since last June, 500 of them girls from a Catholic school.

There has been an increase in overcrowding on wards, more use of drugs, the water shortage has become worse and sanitation facilities have been overwhelmed. Children with malnutrition were on the increase, staff were overworked and the electricity supply was cut off, because the bills could not be paid. But nobody was turned away.

Mrs Robinson bought three bales of clothes to give new outfits to the lepers and others.

She paid for the repair of a bore hole so 100 families could get water up to 2km from their homes, instead of walking four times that distance.

"I went to the market and bought some goats and was delighted to find later that one was pregnant. I also gave money to people to buy their own animals.

"The goats are kept as a bank account so they can be sold if money is required for such things as medical expenses."

She told the D&S Times: "It was the second time I had been to the hospital and conditions had improved. I had given some recommendations for physiotherapy and general nursing and all had been implemented. The operating theatre had been improved and the wards were a lot cleaner.

"The first time I went out what hit me was the smell, but this time I didn't notice it at all.

"There is a difference between being poor and poverty. This was way into the depths of the bush and I saw poverty in the extreme."

She went out with community-based workers to clinics in villages where word spread very quickly that they had arrived.

Eye clinics were held for children and old people with cataracts; an orthopaedic surgeon attended every couple of months to examine people with club feet or osteomyelitis and a plastic surgeon from Germany did complex operations on cleft palates.

"The community workers also do home visits and although they are not really qualified, the standard of work is excellent.

"You get polio patients who crawl everywhere with flip flops on their hands. They can be given a tricycle that works by hand and that is lovely to see. It also means they can get some work.

"They now have polio vaccines for babies and a lot of health issues are being addressed now.

"I seemed to have more influence in making the stubborn mothers do things," she went on.

One case close to her heart was a disabled boy she discovered being put outside his hut every day and left there.

"I managed to get the mother to take him in and wash him. I got him some clothes and also a wheelchair. That way he could move himself and other children came and played with him."

Another was the case of a young woman who was brain-damaged and padlocked into a hut, with a neighbour bringing her a meal, whenever her parents had to go away for some days.

"They weren't being cruel, they did it for her own safety. I got her some clothes, a waterproof mattress, which was quite expensive out there, and a £4 radio, which she loved.

"One in four of the people out there are also HIV positive, although, of course, they die mostly from other causes such as TB, or pneumonia, and quickly go down hill.

"There were some lovely people, but most of them have a number of wives, up to seven at one audit, although they won't admit it."

There were about 70 lepers, mainly old people, because the disease is being diagnosed much faster.

"The nerves are destroyed in their hands and feet and because they cannot feel anything they get horrible, ulcerous infections.

"Now we teach them to inspect themselves and take preventative measures."

A vegetarian, who got used to "mostly cabbage and rice or rice and cabbage", she did have a more adventurous experience.

"We had been to a clinic in a church and the pastor had provided us with a meal made with mushrooms, knowing I didn't eat meat.

"I was quite enjoying it until I asked where the mushrooms came from. He told me from the termite hill and that was when I realised what the long white bits were in the soup.

"They eat termites and white ants and grasshoppers are a speciality."

In September, Mrs Robinson intends to return to the hospital.

She points out: "I wish I could bring back the smiles and thanks from people, who thought the deeds I performed were miracles.

"I am sure no-one can comprehend the quality of life that is endured in the bush. A little money goes a long, long way."

Anyone who would like to make a donation can contact her on 01325 465469.