The Staff..

So my placement is now over, the last four weeks have flown past and I have no idea where! It's been amazing working there and hasn't felt like work at all! 

The staff have all been lovely, there was only one woman in the department and she only works with the caesium machine really. There attitude is so laid back and there is no rush about anything. It's nice in a way, but can sometimes be annoying when patients are waiting around and left on the bed or waiting for their treatment for ages. 

They have a poor opinion of UK radiotherapy and the staff. It's been said to me that we don't talk to patients at all, whereas we talk to patients a lot more than they do and have much more of a caring nature. Most of the time all they ask them is for their name and to go into the room and to leave the room. So I'm not sure why they think that their much more patient orientated! 

Another statement has been made that we don't talk to each other at work or use our phones. I tried to explain that we do talk to each other and they said no you don't talk about things outside of work, they didn't understand that we did. And the fact that we don't use our phones was a professionalism thing, they didn't grasp that concept either. 

They've made a big effort with me though asking lots of questions about the UK and how we do things. Most of them know how we do things though, as the sad thing is that their education at university is the same as ours, but everything is theory as that just don't have the equipment to practice how we do. One man told me how they got told they would get a chance to go to another country to practice, but they never heard anything else about it sadly. 

They would all love to see how we did it and come over, but they can't get anywhere as its just too expensive and they have commitments here. 

This week a lot of the staff have been off, due to the red they received at the end of last week. There were 7 interns working and 4 jobs were on offer to start when they are qualified at the end of the year. However, none of them were offered the jobs as they decided to offer them to diagnostic technicians and then train them up as this way is cheaper. This means that they know have nowhere to go as there are no other centres in the whole of Tanzania, so the last 4 years of their lives have been with no reward. It's very sad and they were very demoralised, so have not been in to work. 

It will be sad to leave them, but I've got their emails and intend to keep in touch and see what's happening our there in the future and if things are changing like they all want it to!