“Take your time, I’m listening.”
This is one of the things Ego Olori finds herself saying often in her work. As Howden Health Centre’s only full-time health visitor, she has a caseload of over 480 clients, but she still finds time to listen to each client about their concerns. It doesn’t matter if they are not fluent in English and take some time thinking of the right word, or if they use Google Translate to communicate in English – Ego is listening.
“I’ve been there, so I know how it feels,” Ego says. When she first moved to the United Kingdom, she occasionally found herself struggling to be understood as well, and if the other person was patient and attentive, that made all the difference.
However, the pandemic has affected her work as it has affected many healthcare workers’. “Before COVID, we had clinics that people could visit,” Ego says. “Now it’s just home visits. And that can be challenging. Some people don’t want you coming into their home, and they don’t want to come to the clinic either.”
Ego and her colleagues might be asked by the police to pay a visit to a particular family, but the family does not want to let anyone inside, and do not wish to speak on the phone. In those situations, Ego has found that meeting in the garden is a good compromise, and that way she can offer support and advice to the family.
COVID has also increased her workload. “Because soft play places and those kinds of areas were shut during lockdown, a lot more families were struggling – especially if people had to work from home, schools were online or shut,” Ego says. “That led to more calls for health visitors’ advice, which led to more work for us.”
Ego is incredibly passionate about her work. Every story about how demanding her work is, is followed by a story about still finding time to listen to people’s concerns about things unrelated to her remit (matters such as adult vaccination, abortion, or relationship issues).
“When people ask me about vaccination, it’s not my role to make that decision for them,” Ego says. “I try to guide them, I give them leaflets and talk through their concerns. I am there to support them to make an informed choice.”
When asked about whether there are particular groups more uncertain about vaccination, Ego nods. “Definitely,” she says. “I speak to a lot of people of African descent about vaccination. They feel like they can talk to me more freely because I am African as well, I have a cultural understanding that others might not have.”
Even before COVID, African, Indian and even Polish people often reached out to Ego first. “There is a lot of unique terminology in healthcare,” Ego says. “If someone had been to a clinic and heard terms they didn’t understand, they would ring me to ask if I could explain it. I’m known for being patient in that way.
“It is very frustrating to not be understood. That’s why I always tell them, don’t worry. Take your time. I’m listening.”
