Thread: Tuberculosis still a worry in Milford

http://www.milforddailynews.com/localRe ... leid=90557

Tuberculosis still a worry in Milford
By Andrew Lightman/ Daily News Staff
Tuesday, April 25, 2006 - Updated: 01:08 AM EST

MILFORD -- Stretched thin and struggling to communicate with the town’s growing immigrant population, the Greater Milford Visiting Nurses Association asked the town last night to hire its own full-time nurse.

Since the 1970s, the town has contracted services from the association to run flu clinics, visit new mothers and help check and prevent the spread of infectious diseases, among dozens of other tasks.

However, the town has seen a sharp rise in cases of tuberculosis among immigrants in the last two years, and the Visiting Nurses asked the Board of Health last night for more help to stop a potential spread.

"What’s happening in town has changed so much since the 1970s," said Jean Masciarelli, the home health administrator for the Greater Milford Visiting Nurses Association. "The Visiting Nurses are totally overburdened just investigating one type of disease."

The Visiting Nurses suggested the Board of Health hire a full-time nurse, at about $82,000 per year, or a part-time nurse at $49,000, to control the spread of tuberculosis.

Short of hiring a town nurse, the Visiting Nurses suggested the town increase its nursing budget and provide police escorts and paid volunteers to help monitor tuberculosis patients taking their medication.

There were seven reported cases of tuberculosis among Milford residents during the last fiscal year, prompting 379 home visits by nurses, required five times per week to monitor whether patients are taking their medicine.

The number of visits helped contribute to a $56,000 budget shortfall for the Visiting Nurses last year, and has them $1,000 over budget so far this year.

The problem is the visits are complicated by language barriers, the 12- to 14-hour workdays many of the patients have, and lack of staff available to visit homes at night, said Diane Haynes, a nurse manager with the Visiting Nurses.

Masciarelli said the nurses also are nervous about visiting some homes in town, especially alone and at night, for people who already are not eager to have visitors.

"If we had someone who spoke Spanish and worked evenings, we’d be all set," she said. "The area at night is uncomfortable for the nurses....It’s a tough area, particularly for a woman at night."

And the number of required visits is expected to go up.

Another four cases have been documented this year, with four patients from last year still on medication, and Masciarelli said she expects the number of visits to increase because three children were exposed to the disease by someone living in their houses. Children exposed to tuberculosis must take medicine for up to nine months to prevent the disease from forming.

If the children of the recent, undocumented immigrants are not protected from the disease now, Haynes said cases of tuberculosis could soon wind up in the schools.

"They don’t have pediatricians, they don’t have obstetricians, the women who are pregnant," she said. "They aren’t school-aged now but the children will be in a few years and they need a certain level of health care before they start school."

Most of the local cases have been among people in their late teens and early twenties, Haynes said, making the likelihood of childhood exposure great as they have children.

"I agree. It’s a young population," said Board of Health member Leonard Izzo. "They’re going to multiply."

The Board of Health, which has helped implement a number of new bylaws to help prevent people from living in overcrowded conditions, which can aid the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, said it would do what it can to support the nurses.

"I think we should push for a public health nurse," said board member Ken Evans. "And if they don’t approve that, then we should push for whatever the VNA asks for (financially)."



Andrew Lightman can be reached at 508-634-7583 or andrew.lightman@cnc.com.

great just great....This country will be drowning in thirld world country diseases if this amnesty bill goes through.

As a Registered Nurse, I can tell you it already is drowning in diseases from Mexico and let me tell you some of these TB cases are very virulent forms and are not responding to the usual TB med regime. It spreads so rapidly with them to because of over crowding housing and lack of prompt medical attention in the early stages. Most of them have never had TB screening, I am sure that is not done on a routine basis for these jobs they are hired for don't you think? Can you imagine what will happen if we get the bird flu pandemic they keep talking about?