How Mennonite women are building bridges between public health and community amid measles outbreak [Video]

Catalina Friesen got a call one night in February from one of her clients, a Low German-speaking mother in Aylmer, Ont. Her daughter had a rash that covered her body. The five-year-old had a fever and was coughing out of control.

“I said, ‘just take her to emerge, especially if she’s not eating or drinking,’” says Friesen, a personal support worker and liaison for a health clinic in St. Thomas, Ont., that caters to the Low German-speaking Mennonite community.

But her client said she already went to the hospital, and that they turned her away.

Friesen called the hospital and found out her client was told to go back to her car — standard practice for a measles patient while they prepare a negative-pressure room.

“But because they couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, they thought they told them to go home,” says Friesen, of the misunderstanding.

Friesen …