A CROSBY couple have been recognised in the New Year honours list for their charity work in Africa. Professors Elizabeth and Malcolm Molyneux have both been awarded OBEs by the Queen for their pioneering health work in Malawi. Malcolm first went to Malawi in 1974, working first in a mission hospital and then as physician in the national referral hospital in Blantyre. In 1984 he went to the School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, before returning to Malawi in 1995 to direct a programme of clinical research funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK, and working within the College of Medicine (COM), University of Malawi. The programme is closely linked with the University of Liverpool and is therefore called the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, with an aim to study diseases of local importance, such as malaria and HIV. The programme also works with COM in the training of staff in clinical and scientific research that is relevant to Malawi’s health needs. Elizabeth was previously a consultant in the A&E department at Alder Hey hospital but after the couple’s four children completed their education at Merchant Taylors School - and as Malcolm’s work took him more frequently to Malawi - she moved there with him permanently. That was around ten years ago and she is now head of the paediatrics department at COM. The 60-year-old played an instrumental role in the opening of a new extension at the children’s hospital which has drastically improved the provision of care there and at the beginning of 2006 she was made a professor at the College of Medicine. She says that they are both “honoured and rather overwhelmed” and Eric Linford, a friend from St Luke’s Church, where the Molyneuxs regularly attended, said: “They are much loved members of St Luke’s, as evidenced by the financial support we have given to Queen Elizabeth’s Childrens’ Hospital in Blantyre, where Liz now works. “Naturally we are all thrilled with this news, especially as they have both been honoured at the same time.” | 
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