My Working Day:Linda Latham, co-ordinator of the HSE Women's Health Project, gained a lot of experience working abroad which gives her added insight into her work today
I have been the co-ordinator of the HSE Women's Health Project for the past two years.
Having trained as a registered general nurse in Germany, I moved into critical care where I qualified and worked in adult and paediatric intensive care units and A&E departments in Australia and the UK.
My interest in sexual health has developed since my return to Ireland in 2000, when I took up employment as a nurse within the addiction service. I worked in the areas of women's health and gay men's health, and was particularly interested in the clinical development of the role for nurses within a sexual health clinic.
My experience abroad enabled me to see how, with progressive support and vision from management and medical staff, nurses could deliver an effective service to patients.
The Women's Health Project is a sexual health, drug treatment and outreach service supporting women involved in prostitution and, more recently, women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation.
The service has run for the past 17 years and has changed significantly in the past five, mainly due to the changing profile and needs of the service users.
The Irish women who attend often have drug addiction issues and suffer the effects from extreme social exclusion. They have immediate needs relating to housing, family and financial pressures - which keep many women working in prostitution - as well as the personal trauma resulting from their work.
The second and largest group are immigrant women. Many of these women have come to Ireland to escape poverty. In an attempt to provide for basic human needs, such as housing and education, women enter into or are coerced into prostitution.
A proportion of these women have been trafficked. The complex and traumatising issues relating to that experience such as fear, violence and abuse, present a huge challenge to address on a first visit to a sexual health clinic.
A typical day could involve dealing with any of the above issues that arise. On clinic days women may need sexual health advice about infections, crisis pregnancy and diagnosis such as cervical cancer, HIV or syphilis. I may need to liaise with gardaí on sexual assault or threats. In the afternoons, I visit women in their places of work and in the evenings we run a methadone and needle exchange programme for heroin users and finish with late night street work distributing condoms and giving women information about clinical services.
My commitment is in the development of "routes out" strategies that offer options to women who wish to exit prostitution, and to develop progressive and innovative services in conjunction with the medical, nursing, outreach and ancillary staff of the Women's Health project who I admire for their commitment and dedication.
In conversation with Michelle McDonagh