Mary Allen and Thaw Dar were honored recently at the Statehouse by the Medical Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Tuberculosis.
Thaw Dar, left, a community health worker with the state Department of Public Health's Refugee and Immigrant Health Program, with Mary E. Allen, West Springfield public health nurse administrator. The two women were recently honored for their work in preventing and treating tuberculosis in recent immigrants.WEST SPRINGFIELD — A public health nurse administrator with the city Health Department and a state health worker she teams up with were honored recently at the Statehouse by the Medical Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Tuberculosis.
The committee, which is a group of physicians and other tuberculosis experts focused on Massachusetts, gave citations to Public Health Nurse Administrator Mary E. Allen and Thaw Dar, a community health worker with the state Department of Public Health’s Refugee and Immigrant Health Program in Northampton. The two women, who both live in West Springfield, were honored for their work to fight tuberculosis.
“They have done extraordinary work in the community,” Yoojin Lee, coordinator of the committee, said of the two women. Allen and Dar work together to communicate with the local refugee and immigrant population about tuberculosis.
Dar, who came to this country in 2008 from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, translates for non-English speaking people from her former homeland. Allen provides the medical expertise
A former elementary school mathematics teacher in her country, Dar is fluent in Burmese. However, her job is made difficult by the fact that as many as 135 languages are spoken in Myanmar. She has to find someone who is fluent in Burmese as well as the other language in order to translate information for Allen.
“It is very hard for me,” Dar said.
She and Allen have worked with about 1,000 people from Myanmar. Recent immigrants to the area live mostly in Chicopee, Springfield and West Springfield.
While tuberculosis is still somewhat rare in the West, it continues to be a problem in much of the rest of the world, Allen said.
“It can be highly contagious,” Allen said.
Immigrants are tested before being admitted to this country and then again shortly after their arrival here, she said.
In West Springfield, the women have worked with 40 people who have been exposed to the disease and only three with active cases of the respiratory disease.
Allen praised Dar for working lots of unpaid hours helping the new arrivals do things like get to doctors’ appointments and look for apartments and jobs.
“She was an absolute godsend in the disasters of last year,” Allen said of Dar’s work with victims of the June 1 tornado as well as the hurricane and October ice storm.
A native of West Springfield, Allen has also gone above and beyond her role as a nurse in working with new residents vulnerable to tuberculosis, according to a press release issued by the West Springfield Health Department about the women and their citations.
“It is really clear how connected (Allen) is to the community and how much she really cares,” Yoojin Lee, coordinator of the committee, said.