Miss Mpho Gabela is a Radiographer/Final year MPH candidate and from in JOHANNESBURG, GAUTENG, South Africa. 

A short introduction: I am currently a second year Master of Public Health candidate at the University of Johannesburg. The public health degree has provided me with vast knowledge regarding research and various healthcare systems in Africa. Furthermore, the knowledge gained from this degree I have been able to formulate a Covid-19 risk management strategy for our 60 staff member department (which was adopted by other radiology departments) resulting in only 1 staff member being infected and ensuring reliable and continuous patient care thus far.  I also have a degree in diagnostic radiography from the University of Johannesburg and have been practicing as a diagnostic radiographer for the past nine years. Moreover, I also have five years of experience in the healthcare management and IT as a deputy head of department and PACS (Picture archiving and communication system) administrator at Sandton Radiology. This role has given me the opportunity to interact with health workers from different medical disciplines all over the world.
For the past five years I have been responsible for implementing and managing patient data to ensure better workflow for radiologists and referring physicians. Furthermore, I have also been responsible for the day-to-day management of the 60 staff member department. Since my hiring Sandton radiology has successfully migrated from being an analogue practice to a fully digital practice managing to migrate and merge records from as far as 2007 to the digital system. In 2017 in the capacity of clinical tutor with collaboration with the University of Johannesburg, I also managed to assist the practice in securing a five-year clinical training accreditation for students from the HPCSA.  
On the previous posts I have been always receiving excellent feedback from my employers, as demonstrated by the leadership roles I have been assigned to in the seven years. This proves my strong commitment to perform my responsibilities in professional and effective manner. Thanks to my wide experience in the radiography and healthcare IT field. I enjoy working in a team, but I am also comfortable working on my own. Furthermore, I am also a hard worker, have good interpersonal skills, accurate and goal oriented.  

Mpho’s interest in AfroPHC: The most fulfilling part about studying a Master of public health degree has been to meet and work with many healthcare professions from all over Africa where we shared different healthcare systems used all over the continent and debated ways to improve the systems and example being being drone medical supply technology in Ghana and vending machine medical supply in South Africa among others. The Covid-19 pandemic in particular highlighted the need for collaborative and efficient public healthcare systems to further fight public health diseases of concern in the continent. Furthermore, covid-19 has also demonstrated the weaknesses in African healthcare systems even with the lessons from Ebola, Malaria, Cholera, HIV/AIDS etc. I believe that AfroPHC would be an excellent extension of my knowledge from the MPH program going forward..