WRETF Twinning Programme gets a Boost
The World Radiography Educational Trust Foundation (WRETF), as part of its recognised twinning programme, has helped facilitate a vital link between the Radiology Department in South Eastern Trust, Northern Ireland with the Radiology Department in Harare Central Hospital, Zimbabwe which is building an educational library for its radiographic staff.
Shelton Muchemwa, (centre right) Chief Radiographer at Harare Central Hospital, with staff from the department
This particular initiative is the brainchild of Alyson Lattimer, Quality and Training Manager and Professional Link for Safeguarding at the Ulster Hospital in Northern Ireland. She and her colleagues put together a presentation about their department, including a sign ‘Mhoro – hello in Zimbabwean,’ and sent it to their contact in Harare and the response they received was equally welcoming and communicated the crucial need to create a training library for the Harare hospital radiographers. It helped spur the gallant Ulster radiographers on.
“Initially we asked colleagues to donate any unwanted text books in the hope that many of the titles were those requested by Shelton Muchemwa, Chief Radiographer at Harare Central Hospital. We got lucky as many were indeed on their list. In August we held a coffee morning to raise enough money to post what turned out to be 30kgs of books to Shelton. A further 30kgs of books were also shipped before Christmas,” said Alyson.
“We now have a wish list from Shelton and we have specifically asked the IDC SIG and the WRETF to help us with this, so we are confident of sending further books in early 2019”, she added.
“The WRETF twinning programme matches departments in the UK with those in developing countries and over the last few years has facilitated 14 individual projects which enables not just the all-important book support but can lead to exchanges of staff and resources. These can bring strong benefits to patients in developing/low to middle income countries and provides a real focus for a UK department”, said Chris Steelman, recently appointed Chair of the WRETF.
If any UK departments are interested in participating please get in touch with the WRETF on admin@wretf.org