Page 19 - QARANC Vol 19 No 1 2021

Florence Nightingale Scholar
Staff Sergeant Colodia Sukali Muzvidziwa ARRC
Colodia Muzvidziwa is a nursing graduate of Birmingham City University (2007), after which she commenced work at Barchester Healthcare as a Registered Nurse. Within eight months her potential to work beyond a band five was noted and she was quickly promoted to night sister. In 2009, Colodia joined the QARANC where she continued to work proactively as a general nurse in the elective orthopaedic and acute dependency ward at MDHU Frimley Park, before she went on a short detachment to Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (Headley Court). On return she was tasked to go and support the WINTER REPAIR exercise in British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) in Canada. In 2012 she started working in ITU and within three months of being in the department, she was deployed to Afghanistan as an experienced ITU nurse where she excelled in nursing critically ill patients with complex trauma, burns and non- battlefield injuries. Her experience resulted in a successful application for the ITU specialist course. In 2014 she completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Critical Care at Brighton University before being posted to Defence Medical Group South where she consolidated her critical care skills.
Colodia deployed to Sierra Leonne in 2015 during the Ebola crisis, spending four months of her tour on the RFA Argus and the remaining two months on land where she not only cared for patients but took added responsibility for the safe delivery of medical commodities to Ebola treatment centres from the airhead. On return, she was posted to 33 Field Hospital, where she worked as the Cadre Head of the ITU department ensuring that the department was ready for deployment on short notice. During this period Colodia was promoted to Sergeant and yet again deployed to South Sudan on a humanitarian mission. It was during this deployment that she worked far and beyond what was expected of her both as a soldier and a nurse, bringing together skills and lessons
learnt from previous deployments into practice. Her work and contributions to the deployed nursing effort was recognised by the Deployed Taskforce on the United Nations Camp in Bentui, integrating and coordinating training for nurses from Troop Contributing Countries (TCC) which maintained the operational effectiveness in an austere environment.
Awarded the Associate Royal Red Cross (ARRC) in 2019 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her work in South Sudan, Colodia was selected as a role model for the Science Technology Engineering Mathematics and Innovation (STEMI) 2018 show and in the same year went to Zambia in support of Birmingham City University (BCU) to launch the framework of the first Bachelor in Science Nursing Programme in the country, working alongside senior faculty lecturers and nurses from BCU and Lusaka College of Nursing and Midwifery. She continued to take added responsibilities and dedicated time to the QA Association
as the Secretary and Treasurer of the Aldershot Branch providing support to past and present QARANC nurses.
Now a scholar of the Florence Nightingale Foundation Army Leadership Programme, she was invited to the Singapore International Nurses Congress as one of the UK’s nursing delegates, where she laid a wreath at the Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemetery at Kranji on behalf of the QARANC Association in remembrance of nurses and other AHP who made the ultimate sacrifice. Involved in the two most significant events in nursing history, Colodia was filmed in practice and invited as a guest speaker to the NMC 100 Years of Nursing celebrations and nominated in commemoration of Florence Nightingale’s 200yrs of Nursing and her profile is exhibited at the Florence Nightingale Museum where it still stands.
Staff Sergeant Suzan McLeod
The Gazette QARANC Association 17
Leadership and Empowerment: Sergeant Colodia Muzvidziwa ARRC