On a Tuesday morning in early March, Fatima leaves her flat in Greenock just after eight o'clock. She has three appointments today, spread across two GP practices and a community pharmacy, and she will spend the intervals between them on the phone — answering messages from families who are trying to understand a hospital letter, or a prescription label, or a form from the school about their child's vaccinations. She has been a health navigator with Vibrant Health Advocates – North Star for two years. She describes the work with a precise word: translation. "Not just words," she says. "Everything around the words."
Fatima's first appointment is with a Somali family who arrived in Inverclyde six months ago through the UK Resettlement Scheme. The father has a follow-up appointment with his GP regarding a chronic pain condition that began before he left Somalia. The GP is thorough and kind, but without Fatima, the consultation would rely on a telephone interpreter with no knowledge of this man's history, his previous treatments, or the context behind the pain — physical and otherwise. Fatima knows him. She has met with the family four times since their arrival. She carries that context into the room.
After the appointment, she sits with the family for twenty minutes in the waiting room, explaining what the GP has said, what the new medication is for, how to take it, and when to come back. She writes the key points on a card in Somali so they can refer to it at home. The father nods slowly, then says something to Fatima that she later translates: "Now I feel like a person here, not a problem."
Between appointments, Fatima takes a call from a Polish woman who has received a cervical screening reminder and is anxious about what it involves. In Poland, she had a difficult experience with a similar test and is now afraid. Fatima takes time with this call. She explains what the NHS screening involves, why it is different, what the woman's rights are, and that she can request a female clinician. She does not rush. By the end of the call, the woman has agreed to book an appointment.
The afternoon brings a visit to a local pharmacy with a young man from Afghanistan who is picking up a prescription for the first time and does not understand the dosage instructions on the label. The pharmacist is helpful but busy. Fatima reads the label with him, explains each line, mimes the twice-daily schedule with her hands until he smiles with recognition. It takes eight minutes. Without her, he might have taken too much, or too little, or given up and not taken it at all.
Health navigators like Fatima work across the gap between people and systems. They cannot diagnose. They cannot prescribe. What they can do — and what the NHS, stretched as it is, cannot always do alone — is make sure that a patient understands what is happening to them, feels respected in the room, and leaves with the knowledge to follow through on their care. In a town where languages from across the world are now spoken, that capacity is not a luxury. It is what makes care real.
Vibrant Health Advocates – North Star currently supports families speaking more than a dozen languages across Inverclyde. If you would like to refer a family, enquire about volunteering, or learn more about how health navigation works, we would love to hear from you.
