Describe what you do day to day?
I go into the community and encourage people to get screened for TB (Tuberculosis). The community work I manage involves taking stalls at events and different projects at centres such as The Manchester College, as well as refugee and asylum seeker groups in Manchester. My role is to assist the TB nurses at MRI Hospital. Patients come in and I can give them information in different languages – Arabic, Somalia, Urdu, Punjabi – which helps them feel more at ease.
Why is this important?
Because some communities are entering the country from other countries where TB is a problem. I help to kickstart the process of their screening, which is an involved process, but is important for them to get the opportunity to be diagnosed and prevent the spread of TB – from those who have an active form of TB. An added value of my role is that I can signpost patients to other activities like ESOL classes in the community, which can help them with learning of English.
Achievements?
I’m passionate about my work and people can see that. I am approachable and as such, people aren’t afraid of asking me questions. I’m a people person and have helped staff in the hospitals with advice on speaking to patients on TB matters. This role has helped me to feel valued -the nurses at MRI Hospital feel that I’m a valued team member there too.
Challenges?
There’s only myself doing this role three days a week and funding of this project is limited to that for the work that we are doing. I have a busy week and try to be flexible over which days I work, but it would be great to have more members on this team. The DNA (did not attend) rate of patients not turning up for appointments is high, so I have been speaking to patients over the phone in advance for their appointments to try to reduce this figure. There are 18,000 people on a waiting list for TB screening, as when they enter the UK from a country where TB rates are high they automatically get put onto the list. We get names of new entrants to Greater Manchester and the appointment waiting list for those is 6 – 12 months.
Type of events?
There are lots of community events which take place in the Summer like the Mela in Platt Fields and the Caribbean festival in Alexandra Park, so I am usually there in person meeting people. When there I speak to some people who might be experiencing symptoms of TB that are prolonged and not going away. For example, this might be a cough, fever, weight loss, loss of appetite, night sweats and extreme tiredness.