THE UK’s longest-serving radiographer has celebrated her 50th work anniversary.
Bozenna Wereszczynska, from Cowley, began at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1969. It was the year of Woodstock, the Vietnam War and Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon.
The hospital, a former Victorian workhouse which was demolished and rebuilt in 2008, had an international reputation and was home for a number of pioneering doctors.
The dominant feature was a half-mile corridor that ran from one end of the hospital to the other.
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Bozenna, 71, said: “The radiography department was at one end and theatres at the other, so we rushed up and down it all day, taking X-ray cassettes to be processed in the darkroom.
“We had five radiographers, compared to an 80-strong workforce across the trust today. The service has grown beyond recognition.”
A few oddities have shown up on her X-rays, including coins, a bar of soap, pens, a giant tapeworm and sachets of heroin swallowed by a drug mule.
Does she have plans to retire? “It would be nice but I own six horses with my partner,” she said. “They are my children and, like children, you want the best for them.”
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