Volunteer Clinicians Needed
Support service employees?—?food, transport, and environmental service staff?—?work hard behind the scenes to support the highest quality health care delivery for others, but often do not receive basic health education and care for themselves. Barriers include time, access, costs, language and cultural issues.
BWH Support Services, in conjunction with Harvard Medical School’s Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, is organizing health education sessions for female support services staff. Each one-hour session will consist of a brief health presentation from a BWH clinician, a question and answer period, and health screenings. Employees will receive paid release time to attend during their shifts.
Sessions begin this fall, building on a pilot program that was very well received by employees, managers and clinicians. Employees were extremely grateful to have the opportunity to learn vital health information. The pilot program also revealed high rates of undiagnosed and unmanaged hypertension among this employee group.
Sessions will be offered in Haitian-Creole, Spanish, and English. Clinicians who speak Haitian-Creole or Spanish are especially needed. To volunteer to lead a session or to learn more, e-mail Jill Bassett at jbassett1@partners.org and include your name, languages spoken and clinical specialties.