Testimonials / Previous experiences

If you are a leader, a director or a manger we are asking you to be an inspiration for others by adopting one of the pledges and committing to it, which will spark the innovation for all others.

If you have an idea and you don't think that you can achieve it alone, and you don't have enough authority in your facility to force it, speak to your colleagues, you will be surprised how much support you will get and how many ideas you will hear from them but they couldn't speak up for the same reasons you had, but you will discover how effective teamwork can be against any obstacle, so take the initiative and talk to your colleagues.

To make a pledge means that you want to make some changes to your daily routine, it doesn't matter how simple or deep as long as it's going to enhance the health services you provide, here are some examples for pledges that have been taken by different health sector workers:

• Doctors: One doctor in Australia pledged to spend some time with the patient's family to explain to them more about his situation and wash any unneeded fears away, some doctors pledged to give some training sessions about how to increase the quality of health services, while other doctors pledged to consider Change Day an open clinic day to take care of needy people for free, some Pediatricians pledged to wear a costume of famous cartoon character, on the other hand one of the senior doctors in one of the hospitals pledged to take care more of his junior doctors, for example he will ask them if they had the chance to have their lunch break or not, cause if the doctors are in a good shape their service will be as well.
• Nursing staff: In one of the children's clinics in Britain a nurse pledged to taste the medicine before giving it to the children to know how it taste & to understand the children's reaction to it, also some nurses pledged to entertain the kids by wearing clown costume and do some face painting for them while waiting for their vaccine, other nurses pledged not to let their personal life problems interfere with their performance at work, and others pledged to spend some more time understanding the patients history during filling the paper work to eliminate any kind of error that can happen during their treatment.
• Labs: Some of the Medical Labs pledged to distract the children during taking a blood samples by making funny faces and make them laugh, other labs pledged to give senior citizens and pregnant women priority over others not to let them wait for a long time, while some labs pledged to give some of their profit to the medical studies.
• Radiologists: One of the radiologists pledged to help senior citizens to put on the radiology special coat, others pledged to spend some more time to explain for the kids the dangers of radiology and why it's important not to be exposed to it for a long time, while others pledged to give more effort when giving a training radiology sessions to make sure that the trainee will have a very good standards which will directly affect their work.
• Pharmacists: Some of them pledged to explain for the patients the use and the side effects of the medicine they are about to take, others pledged to donate medicine for those who can't afford it, while some companies pledged to give more money for the Medical Researches.
• Administration: The managers, directors, and leaders can make a big difference by participating in the Change Day, the research and development manager in the British NHS pledged to shadow one of the doctors for a day to interact with the patients he works with, he said that it had a very good impact on his work, he explains that rather than dealing with numbers he now thinks of them as patients that he saw and worked with more passionately, one of the clinics manager pledged to receive the patients at the front door of his clinic to let them feel more welcomed, another manager at the British NHS pledged to use the wheel chair during the Change Day to understand the difficulties wheel chair users face every day and try to solve them, other managers pledged to track their employee pledges and reward the most efficient of them.

Those kinds of pledges reminded everybody of the importance and sensitivity of this sector and it endorsed the trust in the workers of this sector that they really care, more importantly it inspired a lot of workers to adopt some of the pledges and even encouraged them to make some of their own that they thought were not worth mentioning.