Planned. Prayed. Surgery. Saved.

When a desperately ill expectant mother entered the Intensive Care Unit at Chinchpada Christian Hospital in India, the medical team sprung into action.

Ranjana was pregnant, hypertensive and struggling to breathe when she arrived at the emergency room. She’d been turned away from a larger hospital because she couldn’t afford the fees, and came to Chinchpada Christian Hospital (CCH) in Maharashtra, India, because she knew the doctors there would do everything they could to help her and her unborn son.

But Ranjana’s condition was so critical she could not be moved from the hospital’s High Dependency Unit to an operating theatre, even though staff feared for the lives of both mother and baby.

So, Dr Deepak Singh and his team at CCH did what they always do in the face of desperate need and limited facilities. They made a plan. They consulted with Ranjana and her family, who gave consent for the operation to take place in the High Dependency Unit, and then the whole hospital swung into action, moving equipment from the surgical unit to where mother and baby struggled for life.

They prayed. They marshalled all their skills and training, and they operated.

Over the next few days, Ranjana was weaned off ventilator support and family members took turns pumping the bag that was giving the little newborn the oxygen he needed. Doctors had the difficult task of explaining to the family that the baby’s chances of survival were not high.

But they continued to work to save him, and continued to pray not just for his survival but that he would not have sustained brain damage due to oxygen deprivation.

A week later, Ranjana was sitting up in bed, making excellent strides towards recovery, and her little baby was in her arms, breathing and free of any damage despite his ordeal, if exhausted from his fight. Ranjana and her family chose a name that isn’t common in their part of India (for obvious reasons). They called their little fighter Samson.

Doctors at Chinchpada Christian Hospital face situations like this all the time. They lack facilities. They lack space. They lack equipment. And yet they save lives and heal wounds every day. They have the skills, the compassion and the tenacity to do this work. What they need is the space and the tools to keep doing it.

CCH’s building is old and will soon be unusable. They need to rebuild now to keep helping people like Ranjana and Samson. And they can, if you and people like you will help.

If 40 people each give £1,000, more babies like Samson and mothers like Ranjana will be able to survive.

You can help them today. Please give and please share this story.