At a time when access to health care in the United States has never been more hotly debated, Somalis living in Central Minnesota will continue to have one of their own to help them with it.

Create CommUNITY has awarded $20,000 to continue the Community Health Worker project in St. Cloud, which will allow Fartun Hussein, a Somali-American, to continue to serve as the community health worker for the Somali community in Central Minnesota until Jan. 15.

“It’s a real critical need in that community, and we’re hoping that it will be a model that we can replicate in other communities of color,” said Hedy Tripp, Create CommUNITY coordinator.

Hussein has helped Somalis enroll in health care coverage, renew their existing coverage, schedule annual checkups and get prescriptions filled in the past year.

The Minnesota International Health Volunteers implemented the pilot project in June 2008, with one of the goals of the project being the education of health care professionals in the St. Cloud area about Somali culture, myths and beliefs about health.

Somali community

“We have a great health care system in Minnesota, but if your native language is not English, how do you navigate that? Even for people who speak English, sometimes it’s difficult navigating the health care system,” Tripp said.

Hussein received a bachelor’s degree in community health from St. Cloud State University after moving from Kenya to Minnesota in 1999. She relocated to St. Cloud in 2001 and now works 32 hours a week with the Somali community.

During the past year, she visited 228 homes and served 105 households, surpassing the original project goal by 14 percent, according to Minnesota International Health Volunteers, a Minneapolis-based organization dedicated to improving the health of women and children worldwide.

“I think it’s done more than what we even expected of it,” said Tripp of Create CommUNITY, a St. Cloud-based initiative whose mission is to “dismantle racism through systemic change.”

Helping others

Among her work of the past year, Hussein help a family new to St. Cloud connect with Stearns County Public Health to continue treatments for tuberculosis, and she educated a new mother who was positive for Hepatitis B on the importance of regular checkups and vaccination.

“Are communities of color able to navigate the health care system in the best way to benefit them?” Tripp said of the genesis of the project, which was the brainchild of Paul Knutson, chairman of the Create CommUNITY Healthcare Access Focus Area.

Hussein also conducted nine health forums in Somali on specific topics, most of which were requested. Topics included asthma, obesity, infectious diseases, back injuries, prenatal care, immunizations, autism, breast cancer and mental health.

“The rest of this year, we’re going to look at the real evaluation on patient satisfaction, perhaps through some interviews and surveys with people in the community who have benefited from the Community Health Worker program,” Tripp said.

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