What a difference! A few degrees increase in temperature and clear blue skies all round today, meant a big turnout for our last mouth cancer screening session in Tower Hamlets…for now at least.
After two fairly quiet sessions we had 51 people turn up today, all adults and 51 completed questionnaires. This brings our total to 125 people with 5 referrals made to Oral Med.
Its always very difficult to judge how to approach people especially in the community East London Mosque may be busy with people at the weekends but how do we actually engage peoples attention so they come to the screening.
A few factors were against us the fact that it was the summer holidays and the weather being un predictable meant the busy Sunday ladies Quran class was lacking numbers even if observation suggests otherwise.
I enlisted the help of one of the ladies that I know from the Mosque Pilot, she was great! We managed to budge the old ladies in the Gallery and providing a helping hand getting on board the mobile, we found someone who had never been to the dentist and had to be referred.
I have certainly learnt a lot from this experience. Looking out for key community people is a bonus to getting the communication across and emailing the Mosque directors as much as possible to get them on board and promote the idea is important. By the third session I think we had built up enough momentum through advertising and outreach to get good turnout.
Pictures to follow…
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