A TB survivor tells her story - Part 5: Telling my community

Transcript

Transcript - A TB survivor tells her story. Part 5: Telling My Community

Transcript - A TB survivor tells her story. Part 5: Telling My Community

(Gentle music plays in background.)

TEXT on Screen: Health in Our Hands

TEXT on Screen: A TB survivor tells her story

TEXT on Screen: You are watching part 5 of a 6 part series.

TEXT on Screen: Part 5: Telling My Community

(First Nations woman sitting on couch)

TEXT on Screen: Eileen Necroch

Eileen Necroch: I did not want to get anybody else sick in my community so it was very very important for me, so when I went home I stuck a great big sign on my door that said, enter at own risk in capital letters, infectious TB in home. People were scared. People were fearful of, what's going to happen. Oh no, TB, hands up, stay away.

TB control couldn't tell anybody, but I was told it was up to me who I wanted to tell, so I told everybody. My main reason for telling everybody is because elders have a harder time fighting diseases than people my age, and infants have a harder time fighting diseases than people my age.

She is a community health nurse on my reserve and I want to call her my champion, because she paved the way for me as far as being sick with TB, she educated everyone that needed the education, everyone that was treating us like we had the plague. She went into the school and she educated the students there. Those little students then went home and educated their parents and said you don't have to be scared of TB, this is what it is. They went home with pamphlets, they went home and told their parents, Mrs. Necroch has tuberculosis but she's not gonna die.

TEXT on Screen: Health Canada. Learn more about TB at healthycanadians.gc.ca/tuberculosis

TEXT on Screen: Government of Canada Wordmark

TEXT on Screen: Produced by APTN (Aboriginal People's Television Network)