We hope you are enjoying your summer!  
 
The weather here in the UK is going to be hot this week if the forecast is anything to go by.  Not dissimilar to the temperature in Zambia at the moment, withtemperatures rising to 30 ◦C during the day.  August is one of the more comfortable months in Zambia at the moment, but in rural areas the roads are very dry, rutted and dusty. 
 
The local population will be quite used to travelling on these dusty roads  but even so, we can all perhaps understand that when you are feeling ill, it is an added discomfort to have to walk long distances to get to a rural health clinic seeking treatment. 
 
Our vision is to expand into more and more clinics to offer advice to Clinical Officers who may have to otherwise refer their patients on to a hospital, possibly involving long tedious and sometimes painful walks to the hospital and then back to the clinic some days later to get help.
 
Last month we mentioned the eight new sites in Kazungula District and cases have started to come in from those areas and we now have over 40 UK based doctors with a range of specialisms to offer advice for any they received.  We are now planning further expansion.  We simply could not deliver our service without the support of our volunteers and funding from our donors.  Thank you!

Broaching the subject of fundraising

When our Chairman, Ian Kerr, recently found some family jewellery in the back of a dusty drawer he decided he would try and find out a bit more about it. He discovered it had quite a history.  A broach which belonged to his mother, (whose uncle was the Tsar of Russia’s doctor) had markings that indicated it came from that region and period.After seeking advice from local Sussex based auctioneers, Gorringes, Ian agreed that the broach would be put up for auction and the proceeds would be donated to his charity of choice which of course is the Virtual Doctors and to maximise the donation Gorringes and the Eastbourne Auctions agreed to waive the fees.  We have just received a cheque for £580!  Thank you Ian – keep up the cleaning – a tidy sum indeed!

Landmark Team are Community Champions

We are delighted to learn that the team of volunteers in Landmark Information Group have received a commendation for their work developing our software by DMGT Community Champions Award scheme. The team have spent over 2,000 hours on the project to date and have given their time for free.  This is well deserved recognition for such wonderful support.   Congratulations to all involved.

Our expanding team

A warm welcome to 25 new volunteer Doctors who have registered with us over the past few weeks, clearly too many names to mention here but you know who you are!  We can’t than you enough for this offer of support. 
 
Another new addition to the volunteer team is Kevin Buck who will be helping in the office and putting his MailChimp expertise into play getting this up to date content to your inboxes.
 
Thank you all for giving us your time – we look forward to working with you in the future.
 

Finally

Thanks to Carlos Barcia of AETS Ltd, a kind supporter based at Shoreham Airport, who loaned us his training room recently to allow us to get off to a flying start staging interviews for our Executive Business Assistant candidates.  Watch out for the announcement of who will be taking up this role next month.