Somali group wants in on response to St. Paul infection scare
A nonprofit that serves Somali immigrants says the University of Minnesota has been slow to engage community health leaders to address an infectious disease risk at a St. Paul high-rise.
But U officials say Somali physicians have been involved in educating residents of Skyline Tower in the city’s Midway neighborhood. A community meeting is scheduled for tonight.
About 300 current and former residents of Skyline Tower face a low risk of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B or hepatitis C infection after students providing blood sugar screenings wrongly used testing devices on multiple patients, the University of Minnesota announced last week.
Devices were cleaned between patients, but a low risk remains. Free screening tests for illness are being offered on Saturday.
The Minneapolis-based Confederation of Somali Community of Minnesota said in a news release Wednesday that it has received numerous inquiries from Somali community members since the U announced the problem last week.
But the group said in a statement that it “has received no active engagement or instructions from entities in charge.”
“Much to our dismay prominent Somali public health community leaders are also yet to be engaged,” the group said.
The Somali community group could help raise awareness of the issue, while helping to restore trust, said Farhiya Farah, a public health professional who advises the Confederation of Somali Community of Minnesota.
“People are talking about this, and you hear comments like: ‘Of course they will do this to poor people,'” Farah said.
Somali public health officials and community groups could help provide “damage control,” Farah said, since the U program to provide blood sugar screenings was well-intentioned, and the risk to patients is low. But she said:”We have not been asked. That’s the unfortunate part.”
“…When there is involvement from the get-go with all stakeholders, you ensure that there are consistent messages — so the right message is going out consistently,” added Farah, who has published a guide to best practices for risk communication.
But U officials say they have engaged Somali physicians who specialize in hepatitis B and internal medicine to discuss the risk with residents at Skyline, which has a large Somali population. They met with the leading Imam of a local mosque and his staff, the U said in a statement, and coordinated a community meeting where Somali physicians and Sheikh Abdirahmann could explain the situation.
The U also established a multilingual call center in six languages for residents of Skyline.
“Physicians as well as interpreters have been stationed in the Skyline lobby every day including Saturday and Sunday to answer questions,” the U said in a statement. “We have gone door-to-door within Skyline handing out translated flyers and asking if there were any questions.”
CommonBond Communities, the nonprofit that manages the building, said a meeting with Somali community leaders and physicians has been scheduled for Wednesday night. Those leaders will “explain the screening procedure for the clinic this Saturday,” wrote spokesman Jeff Nelson in an email.
Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota was founded in 1994. Last year, the group received a Community Partner Award from the U’s School of Public Health for a research partnership.
“CSCM understands the value and promise of community research,” the group said in its statement. “Researchers from the University of Minnesota have worked hard in establishing trust and goodwill with the Somali community and incidents as such when poorly handled jeopardizes the future of such well-meaning initiative.”
The lack of communication is surprising, Farah said, because the U does “great work” with the Somali community in other areas.
Blood sugar screenings were being offered as part of a U program called Skyline Healthcare Awareness Resident Education (SHARE). Faculty physicians supervise students in the medical, nursing and pharmacy school programs as they work on various health promotion efforts.
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