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From left, Ed Nardell, Anne Fuhlbrigge, James Maguire, Linda Laroche Byron, Bernadette Donnellan, Cameron Ashbaugh and Safiyya Mason celebrate the clinic’s opening.
BWH opened a new state-sponsored TB Clinic—the first clinic of its kind in the Longwood Medical Area—on March 24, coinciding with World TB Day.
“In this country, many people assume that tuberculosis is a thing of the past,” said clinic director Ed Nardell, MD, of the Division of Global Health Equity and the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, whose TB control experience includes previously serving as TB control officer for Boston and later Massachusetts. “But it’s not.”
TB actually is on the rise in Massachusetts, with a 17 percent increase in active cases in 2008, although nationally the disease hit an all-time low last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There also is a great disparity in cases, with racial and ethnic minorities, the homeless and recent immigrants from endemic areas in the world suffering higher rates of TB.
“Access to services has suffered due to TB clinic closures in the state in recent years,” Nardell said. “It’s especially timely that a new state-sponsored clinic is opening this week at BWH to serve the needs of the community and regional health care providers, for patients with both active TB and inactive, latent TB infection that require expert evaluation and treatment.”
At BWH’s clinic, patients will receive treatment, including chest X-ray and evaluation. Those who need medications will receive them for free, as the state provides them. The most common demand is for job clearance, which patients will be able to receive at the clinic. BWH will also receive some patient referrals from the Department of Public Health.
“This is a big service to the community because it is so conveniently located,” said Anne Fuhlbrigge, MD, of the Center for Chest Diseases. “From a public health perspective, patients won’t come unless it’s close.”
A collaboration between Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Disease, the TB Clinic, located in the Center for Chest Diseases, is open to patients from 1 to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and staffed by rotating physicians from both divisions and a public health-trained TB nurse who will perform follow-up care.
“The clinic also will provide public health-oriented teaching about TB for Pulmonary and Infectious Disease fellows, as well as BWH residents and Harvard Medical School students who otherwise would not likely see cases of TB managed in the public health system,” Nardell said. “We are looking forward to providing quality care to the community we serve in collaboration with the state health department.”