Hospital Hires Former Receptionist as Radiographer
A hospital in Caterham, England, got some unwelcome attention recently when it was revealed that it had employed an unqualified radiographer from India. North Downs Hospital hired Smitha Johny as a radiographer (also known as a radiology technician) in 2023 after she claimed to have 23 years of experience in India. That experience, however, consisted almost entirely of being a hospital receptionist. Soon after Johny was hired, it became apparent that her radiography skills were seriously lacking. According to a report in the Daily Mail, a colleague was assigned to help her, but that didn’t seem to be enough.
Johny’s manager, Fernando Pinto, recently told a tribunal that he noticed her following incorrect procedures with patients and gave her a review after three months on the job. She told him she had used a CT Scanner in India, but not an X-ray machine. Testing her knowledge, Pinto pretended to be a patient and asked her to take a hip X-ray. Instead, she pointed the machine at his leg.
Pinto determined that she could not perform even a basic foot x-ray. The hospital fired her and reported her to the Health and Care Professionals Council, which suspended her for six months. The council determined that Johny had not been dishonest, but naive. She had previously worked in a remote part of India and received a small amount of radiography training, but nowhere close to what was needed to be a radiographer in Britain.
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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