LIVES will be saved thanks to the pioneering efforts of a Nursing Studies lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire.

Ann Alty from Lostock Hall, near Preston, has given hundreds of young people in Romania the chance to be properly trained in providing emergency healthcare.

She spent a year working with staff at the University of Sibiu, before getting a grant from the British Council to set up the first ever college for nurses there.

"Under the old regime, all nursing training was banned in Romania," she explained: "This is a massive step for them and it is proof that if you commit yourself to a worthwhile cause you can get a result.

"A year ago they didn't have any kind of higher qualification for nurses. Now they have a new programme of courses as well as a recognised teaching institution for delivering the course - and the first students are due to start in September!"

Mother-of-two Ann first visited Romania in 1991 when she went to see friends Steve and Mandy Hughes from Much Hoole who went out to work there. That's when she realised the need for training facilities in Romania. We have no idea here what it's like to work under an oppressive regime or of the changes brought about by the decline of such a regime," she said.

Ann now pops over from time to time to keep an eye on the project and she even has Romanian staff visiting her in Preston to learn about the way the nursing department is run at the UCLa.

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