QEHB staff member helping patients at home and abroad
Olga Leach-Walters works in the Endoscopy Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, and earlier this year, the Charity brought you the news that Olga was heading off to South Africa to help promote healthcare within orphanages and communities.
Olga has now returned from her trip, and as well as imparting important medical knowledge to communities in South Africa, Olga has raised a fantastic £177.77 to provide ‘added extras’ for patients on the Endoscopy Unit.
Her trip took her to the White River area of South Africa as part of the Ten Thousand Homes Project. Olga said: “The White River area is a very poor area. It was a really eye-opening experience for me to visit. There are a lot of orphanages there, and I was happy to work with them in after-school programmes and in secondary schools to teach them important health information such as sexual health education, and drug education.”
Olga, who is also an International Chaplain with the UN, was accompanied on her trip by four other people from her local church, and enjoyed spending time teaching people about their health, in particular their oral health. Olga took over 350 toothbrushes with her, which were kindly given to her by QEHB, as well as pens and lip-balms.
She said: “My trip was a fantastic experience; it was brilliant working in a small team, teaching women about health in their own communities. Education is such a powerful tool within healthcare, and we were able to empower women to make healthy choices in their lives, and know what actions to take when they have an infection.
“It was particularly interesting to talk to people about epilepsy, and help to change some of the attitudes there about the condition, and how it is best treated.”
Olga’s teaching also included potentially life-saving knowledge such as basic first aid and teaching the recovery position.
Reflecting on her time in South Africa, Olga said: “I am really happy that I went, it was an inspiring experience to be able to teach the people that we met about their health. To have raised money to support patients here in Birmingham as well is excellent.
“We have many patients here in Endoscopy who want to be able to communicate with their loved ones outside of hospital, but the lack of mobile signal makes phone calls tricky. Thanks to the hospital charity funding the excellent Wi-Fi, our patients are able to call their loved ones from their beds, helping them to feel more relaxed before and after their treatment.”
Olga helped to teach youngsters about their health, and was pictured proudly wearing her QEHB Charity t-shirt.
