Put your old xray cassettes to good use!

Radiology techs at Raleigh Fitkin Hospital in Swaziland

I recently received an email from Dr. J.D. Crooks with Diagnostic Radiology in Edmond, looking for some used analog xray cassettes. I have known Dr. Crooks for many years. He recently went on a mission trip to Manzini, Swaziland and worked at Raleigh Fitkin Hospital, the only public hospital in the entire country. (Good luck with that link, it is very, very slow to Africa) This is a VERY poor country where unemployement hovers at 70% and the average wage is $0.47 cents per day.

The xray equipment at the hospital is VERY old.

The radiology department has 4 techs who rotate call every fourth night. They take films about every 5 minutes in two nearly identical rooms. The hospital has two donated ultrasound machines (one donated by Dr. Crooks' church and the Bethany Hospital) and perform approximately 60 ultrasounds per day, primarily o/b walk-in's. The hospital does 40 deliveries per day, all using natural childbirth methods. Dr. Crooks said he was the first radiologist there in many, many years and in fact, they have not had a radiology report in the hospital at all before his since the hospital opened in 1925!

The hospital does 40 deliveries per day, all natural.

Dr. Crooks says a real need at the hospital is decent xray cassettes. The ones they have now are in very poor condition. If anyone has cassettes they would like to donate, please drop me an email or call me and I will get them to Dr. Crooks, who will take care of getting them shipped overseas.

This is a great cause and a great way we, the radiology community, can help out others in dire need with some of our older equipment.

Dr. Crooks and a team of 10 physicians saw over 1,300 people in one day. "I saw more TB in 30 minutes than I saw in 30 years in Edmond" said Dr. Crooks.

Dr. Crooks' long term goal is to get a donated CR system installed with decent Internet so the hospital can send their images to his group in Edmond, who would read them for free.

The team of doctors who volunteered at Raleigh Fitkin Hospital in Swaziland. Dr. Crooks is on the far left.


If you know Dr. Crooks you are welcome to give him a call directly. I didn't put is email and phone on here because of spam concerns.